Indefinite-Personal Sentences (the Russian Passive Substitute)

When an English sentence has no clear "who" — they say it'll rain, I was told, English is spoken here, no smoking — Russian almost never reaches for a passive. Instead it uses a 3rd-person-plural verb with no subject pronoun, an "unnamed they" who do the action while staying anonymous. This is the indefinite-personal construction (Russian: неопределённо-ли́чное предложе́ние, "indefinite-personal sentence"). It is everywhere in ordinary speech, and the single most useful habit you can build at this level is this: when an English sentence would use an agentless passive, render it in Russian as a subjectless 3rd-plural — Меня́ пригласи́ли "I was invited" (literally "they invited me"), not a stilted был + participle.

What the construction looks like

The verb is in the 3rd-person plural — present они́ говоря́т, past они́ говори́ли — but the pronoun они́ is deliberately absent. There is no nominative subject at all. The plural ending alone signals "some unspecified people." Crucially, this is not the same as saying they about a known group; the whole point is that the doer is unknown, irrelevant, or generic.

Note that all three have no word in the nominative case. The grammatical subject slot is genuinely empty — this is why the construction is grouped with impersonal sentences, even though strictly speaking it is "indefinite-personal" (the verb still carries person-number marking) rather than fully impersonal (3rd-singular/neuter with no agreement at all).

The core insight: this is your passive

English forms agentless passives constantly: I was invited, English is spoken here, the road is being repaired, you're not allowed to smoke here. The instinct of an English speaker is to look for a Russian passive — был + a past passive participle (Я был приглашён) or a -ся verb (Здесь говори́тся). Both exist, but in speech they are bookish, heavy, and often wrong-sounding. The native reflex is to flip the sentence into "they do X."

The object of the English passive — I, a book, the house — usually becomes the direct object (accusative) of the Russian verb, exactly as it would with any active verb: Меня́ пригласи́ли (accusative меня́), Мне да́ли кни́гу (dative мне of the recipient + accusative кни́гу). Whatever case the verb normally governs, it keeps. You are simply building an ordinary active clause and leaving the subject empty.

When the doer really is "people in general"

A second, closely related use states a general fact about what people do — in a country, a culture, a place. English uses people, generic you, or sometimes a plain plural; Russian uses the subjectless 3rd-plural.

Notice that English shifts between people, you, and a passive across these three sentences, while Russian uses the identical subjectless 3rd-plural for all of them. This is a real economy: you don't have to decide between "people drink," "they drink," or "tea is drunk" — one form covers the lot, because the whole point is that the doer is left unspecified. The same form also answers questions about general practice: Что здесь обы́чно зака́зывают? "What do people usually order here?", Как пи́шут э́то сло́во? "How do you spell this word?"

Signs, rules, and prohibitions

Public notices, instructions, and prohibitions overwhelmingly use this construction. Where English writes No smoking or No entry, Russian states it as "here they don't do X."

"Someone is …": the unknown single doer

A surprise for English speakers: even when there is clearly one person doing something, if you don't know who, Russian still uses the plural. A knock at the door, a phone ringing, a shout outside — all take 3rd-plural.

How it differs from the true passive and from -ся

Russian does have a genuine passive — the short past passive participle with был (Дом был постро́ен в 1900 году́, "the house was built in 1900") and the -ся passive for imperfective process (Дом стро́ится, "the house is being built"). These are not wrong; they belong to written, formal, and technical registers — laws, reports, academic prose, news. The difference is one of register and emphasis, not meaning:

• Indefinite-personal (Дом стро́ят) — neutral, conversational, the default in speech.
• -ся passive (Дом стро́ится) — neutral-to-formal, foregrounds the process on the patient; common in writing. See the passive and the -ся meanings.
• был + participle (Дом был постро́ен) — formal/literary, foregrounds a completed result; this is where you may name the agent in the instrumental: Дом был постро́ен изве́стным архите́ктором.

Compare also the fully impersonal constructions (3rd-singular/neuter, no agreement at all) such as Темне́ет or Мне хо́лодно on impersonal constructions. The indefinite-personal keeps plural agreement; the impersonal has none.

There is a useful rule of thumb here for choosing. If you would never name the agent — the doer is unknown or irrelevant — reach for the indefinite-personal; it is the unmarked, everyday choice. If you do want to name the agent (by a famous architect, by the committee), you've left the territory where the indefinite-personal is natural and want the был + participle passive, where the agent goes in the instrumental. And if you're writing a report or a label and want to foreground the patient as a process, the -ся passive fits. In speech, though, the indefinite-personal wins the vast majority of the time.

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• The indefinite-personal sentence is a 3rd-person-plural verb with no subject pronoun: Говоря́т, Стро́ят, Сказа́ли — an "unnamed they."
• It is the everyday equivalent of the English agentless passive. Reflexively convert I was told / English is spoken here / I was invited into Мне сказа́ли / Здесь говоря́т по-англи́йски / Меня́ пригласи́ли rather than building был + participle.
• The English subject of the passive becomes the direct object of the Russian verb in whatever case it governs: Меня́ пригласи́ли (acc.), Нам принесли́ счёт (dat. + acc.).
• It states general cultural facts (В Росси́и пьют чай), rules and prohibitions (Здесь не ку́рят), and unknown single agents — note the plural even for one person: Тебе́ звоня́т, В дверь стуча́т.
• The true passive (Дом был постро́ен / Дом стро́ится) is correct but bookish/formal; reserve it for writing, and name the agent there in the instrumental.
• Compare the fully impersonal (3rd-singular/neuter) constructions on impersonal constructions: those have no agreement at all, while the indefinite-personal keeps plural agreement.