Я, ты, он, она, оно, мы, вы, они — the building blocks of every Russian sentence.
Russian has seven personal pronouns, each replacing a noun to avoid repetition — exactly like English "I, you, he, she, it, we, they."
| Russian | Transliteration | English |
|---|---|---|
| я | ya | I |
| ты | ty | you (informal, singular) |
| он | on | he / it (masculine) |
| она | ona | she / it (feminine) |
| оно | ono | it (neuter) |
| мы | my | we |
| вы | vy | you (formal, or plural) |
| они | oni | they |
Unlike English, Russian marks the difference between an informal and formal "you." Ты is used with close friends, family, children, and people your own age you already know well. Вы is used with strangers, elders, teachers, officials, or anyone you'd address respectfully — and it's also the standard plural "you," addressing more than one person regardless of familiarity. When in doubt, especially early in a relationship or in a professional setting, default to вы. Russians will typically invite you to switch to ты (called переход на ты) once a relationship becomes closer.
Because every Russian noun has a grammatical gender, он/она/оно aren't only used for people — they also replace inanimate objects according to the noun's gender. Стол (table, masculine) is replaced by он; книга (book, feminine) by она; окно (window, neuter) by оно. This trips up English speakers at first, since English uses "it" for all objects regardless of grammatical gender in the source language.
Like nouns, personal pronouns change form across the six cases. A few are irregular and worth memorising early, particularly the Genitive/Accusative form of "him/it" — его — and of "her" — её — since these double as possessive pronouns (see our Possessive Pronouns guide). After a preposition, third-person pronouns gain an initial н-: к нему (to him), с ней (with her), у них (at their place) — a small but consistent rule that becomes automatic with practice.