Personal Pronouns and Their Declension

Personal pronouns — "I, you, he, she, it, we, they" — are among the most frequent words in any language, and in Russian they decline through all six cases just like nouns. The good news is that there are only eight of them, so the entire system fits in a single table you can drill once and reuse forever. The two things that genuinely surprise English speakers are (1) the obligatory н- that он/она́/они́ pick up after a preposition (его́ "his" but у него́ "at his place"), and (2) that он/она́/оно́ are not just "he/she/it" for people — they stand in for any noun according to its grammatical gender, so a table (стол, masculine) is он, "he."

The full declension table

Here are all eight personal pronouns in all six cases. Note that the accusative is identical to the genitive for every personal pronoun (they are all "animate" in behaviour), and that the third-person forms have two columns: a bare form and a prepositional form beginning with н-.

A few patterns make this less daunting than it looks:

• Acc = Gen everywhere. меня́ is both "me" (object) and "of me"; their identity is the same animacy rule that governs nouns — see the accusative animacy rule.
• The prepositional has no separate bare form — it only ever appears after a preposition, so мне, тебе́, нём, ней, нас, вас, них are always preceded by о, в, на, при, etc.
• The instrumental мной / тобо́й also have longer literary variants мно́ю / тобо́ю (literary/poetic), which you will see in songs and older texts but needn't produce yourself.

The н- rule: the single point you must master

When a third-person pronoun (он, она́, оно́, они́) follows a preposition, it adds an initial н-. This is automatic and obligatory:

• его́ → у него́, к нему́, с ним, о нём
• её → у неё, к ней, с ней, о ней
• их → у них, к ним, с ними, о них

The н- is a fossilised remnant of old prepositions that ended in -n (like вън, сън). It attached to the following pronoun and stuck. There is no meaning difference — it is purely phonetic — but leaving it out (saying *у его́) is one of the most audible learner errors in the language.

The bare genitive forms его́ / её / их double as the possessive "his / her / their" (его́ дом "his house"), and these possessives never take н- because there's no preposition involved — they belong to the noun, not to a preposition. More on this on possessive pronouns.

он / она́ / оно́ = grammatical gender, not just people

In English, "it" covers every non-person and "he/she" are reserved for people (and pets). Russian works differently: every noun has a grammatical gender, and the third-person pronoun matches that gender — even for lifeless objects. A masculine noun is он, a feminine noun is она́, a neuter noun is оно́, regardless of whether it's alive.

• стол ("table," masculine) → Он but is referred to as Он стои́т в углу́ ("It's in the corner" — literally "He stands in the corner").
• кни́га ("book," feminine) → Она́ лежи́т на столе́ ("It's lying on the table" — literally "She lies…").
• окно́ ("window," neuter) → Оно́ откры́то ("It's open").

So when a Russian asks "Где стол?" and answers "Он там," they are not personifying the table — он is simply the masculine pronoun, and "it" is the only natural English translation.

Russian usually keeps its subject pronouns

If you've learned Spanish or Italian, you know those languages routinely drop the subject pronoun because the verb ending already shows the person (hablo = "I speak," no yo needed). Russian can drop subject pronouns, but it does so much less freely — in neutral declarative speech, Russian normally keeps them. The verb ending often doesn't uniquely identify the person (in the past tense especially: чита́л is "I/you/he read" — all the same word), so the pronoun carries real information.

So the default is я чита́ю, ты чита́ешь, он чита́ет — pronoun present. Dropping happens mainly when the subject is obvious from a tight context or in fixed conversational formulas (Не зна́ю "Don't know," Иду́! "Coming!"), but these feel clipped or casual, not neutral. Treat keeping the pronoun as the norm.

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• Eight pronouns, six cases. Memorise the grid: я → меня́/мне/меня́/мной/мне; они́ → их/им/их/и́ми/них.
• Accusative = genitive for all personal pronouns (меня́, тебя́, его́, её, нас, вас, их).
• The н- rule: он/она́/оно́/они́ add н- after any preposition (у него́, к ней, с ни́ми, о них) — obligatory and purely phonetic. First/second persons never do (с тобо́й).
• Possessive его́/её/их (no preposition) take no н-: его́ кни́га vs у него́ кни́га.
• он/она́/оно́ track grammatical gender, not just people — стол is он ("it"), кни́га is она́ ("it"), окно́ is оно́ ("it").
• Russian keeps its subject pronouns far more than Spanish or Italian — treat я/ты/он… as the neutral default, especially in the past tense where the verb form doesn't show person.