Vocabulary: Nationalities

Vocabulary: Nationalities

Introduction to Nationalities in Russian

• Nationalities in Russian are derived from the names of countries.
• These are adjectives that follow specific grammatical rules: they change according to the gender, number, and case of the noun they are attached to.

Describing Nationalities

• Most nationality words end in ‘-ин’ for masculine singular, ‘-на’ for feminine singular, ‘-ино’ for neuter singular and ‘-ны’ or ‘-ины’ for plural in nominative case.
• For example, a Russian man is русский (russkiy), a Russian woman is русская (russkaya), a Russian item is русское (russkoye) and Russian people are русские (russkiye).

Some Nationalities and their Adjectives

• American: американец (m), американка (f), американцы (pl)
• English: англичанин (m), англичанка (f), англичане (pl)
• French: француз (m), француженка (f), французы (pl)
• Italian: итальянец (m), итальянка (f), итальянцы (pl)
• Chinese: китаец (m), китаянка (f), китайцы (pl)
• German: немец (m), немка (f), немцы (pl)

Using Nationalities in Sentences

• The nationality describes the noun, and therefore agrees in case, gender and number.
• For example, “He is Russian” in Russian is “Он русский”, while “She is Russian” is “Она русская”.

Expressing Nationality in Genitive Case

• To say “from (a country)” or expressing any kind of origin, the genitive case of the country name is used.
• For example, “I am from Russia” is “Я из России”, with ‘Россия’ (Russia) changing to ‘России’ in the genitive case.