On, ona, ono in a sentence
Ten minutes putting the gender rule to work: build three sentences that give the balcony, the armchair and the bathroom their correct ending - masculine, feminine, neuter - then apply the same pattern to two objects you have not met yet, catching the mistake every beginner makes forcing one ending onto every noun, before the unit's own reading text walks you through a stranger's whole apartment.
The part of the grammar page this lesson drills — read it here, then use it.
Guessing gender from the ending
For most nouns, the nominative-singular ending predicts the gender: a noun ending in a consonant is normally masculine (сто, брат, град); a noun ending in -а is normally feminine (жена, кућа, школа); a noun ending in -о or -е is normally neuter (село, поље, име).
This ending-based rule is a strong first guess for any new noun - trust it while learning the smaller set of exceptions below.
Gender drives agreement
Adjectives change ending to match the noun's gender - велик (big) for masculine, велика for feminine, велико for neuter - the same pattern reappears with past-tense verbs in a later lesson.
Serbian also uses он/она/оно for inanimate objects, not just people - a table is он, a house is она, a village is оно.
| Ending | Gender | Example |
|---|---|---|
| suglasnik | muški | sto |
| -a | ženski | žena |
| -o | srednji | selo |
| -e | srednji | polje |
| suglasnik (izuzetak) | ženski | noć |
| -a (izuzetak, muška osoba) | muški | tata |