I, you, we: the subject pronouns

Russian has eight subject pronouns, the words for I, you, he and the rest. Two choices make them different from English: ты or вы for you, and он, она́ or оно́ for it, chosen by the noun's gender.

The eight pronouns

The Latin column spells each word letter for letter, the way you can type it in any exercise here, with the stress marked. The sound is not always the spelling: an unstressed о is said as a short a, so она́ (oná) sounds like aná.

• Я зде́сь. - I'm here.
• Мы до́ма. - We're at home.
• Они́ зна́ют. - They know.

Он, она́ and оно́ follow grammatical gender, not life. A table, стол, is a masculine noun, so it is он; a book, кни́га, is feminine, so it is она́.

• стол - онthe table, so he
• кни́га - она́the book, so she
• окно́ - оно́the window, so it

Оно́ is only for neuter nouns. Noun gender shows how to read a noun's gender from its last letter.

Они́ has no gender at all. English speakers expect a Russian they to split like the singulars, and it does not:

• Ма́ма и па́па? Они́ до́ма. - Mum and Dad? They're at home.
• Где кни́ги? Вот они́. - Where are the books? Here they are.

Do you need the subject pronoun at all?

More often than in Spanish or Italian. The present-tense verb ending does say who is acting, so a bare verb is a complete answer, and in quick speech Russians drop the pronoun freely:

• Ты зна́ешь? Зна́ю. - Do you know? I do.

But the past tense has no person endings, only gender (the Russian past tense explains why), so a past-tense verb without a pronoun leaves the listener guessing:

The practical rule for a learner: keep the subject pronoun. It is never wrong, and dropping it is a stylistic choice you can make later.