Language/Serbian/Grammar/Gender

Gender (Rod imenice)

Serbian language has three genders: masculine (muški rod), feminine (ženski rod) and neuter (srednji rod).

If you wonder how you will know the gender of a noun one of solution is to look it up in the dictionary and remember it. But there are some rules which can help you determine the gender of the noun:

• musculine nouns usually end in a consonant (imenice muškog roda se obično završavaju konsonantom).

But

• some masculine nouns end in - o, and -e, usually masculine proper names. (neke imenice muškog roda se završavaju na -o i na -e, to su obično muška vlastita imena),

• some masculine nouns end in -a (neke imenice muškog roda se završavaju na -a )

Examples: prijatelj (friend), lekar (doctor), učitelj (teacher), otac (father), sin (son), deda (grandfather), prozor (window), mrav (ant), lav (lion), slon (elephant)

kamen (stone), Marko, Slavko, Djordje (proper names), sudija (judge), vođa (leader).

• feminine nouns usually end in - a, (imenice ženskog roda se obično završavaju na -a).

Examples:

žena (woman), majka (mother), baka (grandmother), ćerka (daughter), olovka (pen), mačka (cat), kiša (rain), suknja (skirt), žirafa (giraffe), lutka (doll), lopta (ball), sveska (notebook), knjiga (book), trava (grass)

• neuter nouns end in -e and -o, (imenice srednjeg roda se završavaju na -e i - o)

Examples:

dete (child), more (sea), selo (village), ime (name), pile (chicken), cveće (flowers), polje (field), jezero (lake), pero (feather), lišće (leaves), ćebe (blanket), drvo (tree), sunce (sun), jagnje (lamb).

Feminine singular noun can never end in -o or -e, and neuter singular noun can never end in -a or a consonant.

Also this can help you determine the gender of the noun :

• jednina (singular) množina (plural)

• taj (muški rod, masculine) ti

• ta (ženski rod, feminine) te

• to (srednji rod, neuter) ta

Example:

• taj mrav - ti mravi
• ta lutka - te lutke
• to dete - ta deca