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Recently, a friend accused me of misgendering myself by using "feminine" verb endings. I am aware of many situations where there are verb endings for the grammatical gender of the noun, but when should I worry about inflecting words with my literal gender? I seem to recall a situation where this happens, but I can't find the explanation for it at the moment.

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  • Speaking about any person (no matter yourself or somebody else) you should always use their real gender.
    – Abakan
    Jul 7, 2016 at 17:30
  • But which parts of speech will that affect? Obviously I want to use the right pronoun, but I believe my friend was complaining about declension
    – MrSynAckSter
    Jul 7, 2016 at 17:31
  • Every part that can be gender specific, verbs and adjectives in the first place.
    – Abakan
    Jul 7, 2016 at 17:37
  • All of them singular: verbs in past tense, adjectives and participles, etc.
    – bipll
    Jul 7, 2016 at 17:38

1 Answer 1

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Almost anything that can serve as an adjective: adjectives proper, participles, ordinal numerals, possessive pronouns etc.:

Я красивый (m.) / я красивая (f.)

Я богат (m.) / я богата (f.)

Я обиженный (m.) / я обиженная (f.)

Я первый (m.) / я первая (f.)

Я сам (m.) / я сама (m.)

Verbs in past single (etymologically they are participles too):

Я сделал (m.) / я сделала (f.)

Some collective numerals:

Мы оба (m.) / мы обе (f.)

Двое из нас (m.) / две из нас (f.)

Several nouns:

Я дурак (m.) / я дура (f.)

Я певец (m.) / я певица (f.)

Several adverbs:

Я женат (m.) / я замужем (f.)

Я холост (m.) / я не замужем (f.)

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  • Are you referring to grammatical gender or the literal gender of the speaker? I understand declension by grammatical gender, what I am curious about is the situations where the speaker's literal gender would override that.
    – MrSynAckSter
    Jul 7, 2016 at 18:21
  • @baordog What do you mean by "override"? Grammtical gender must always match speaker's gender.
    – Matt
    Jul 7, 2016 at 18:26
  • @baordog: sentences marked "m." are those a Russian speaking male would have said. Grammatical gender in such sentences always agrees with the sex the speaker identifies themselves with.
    – Quassnoi ♦
    Jul 7, 2016 at 19:14
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    @baordog: Ложка is always feminine in Russian, стол is always masculine, so it's always красивая ложка and красивый стол no matter what. However, words like я, ты, убийца, жадина are masculine or feminine depending on whether it is a man or a woman they define, so a man would be хладнокровный убийца while a woman would be хладнокровная убийца.
    – Quassnoi ♦
    Jul 7, 2016 at 19:22
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    женат и холост are adjectives.
    – Anixx
    Jul 7, 2016 at 20:38

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