Я слышал этот слух.

Слышал is the past tense form of слышать.

• я слышу = I hear / I am hearing
• я слышал = I heard / I have heard

So in this sentence, the speaker is talking about a completed past experience: hearing that rumor.

Also, Russian past tense is formed differently from English:

• infinitive: слышать
• past stem + -л: слышал

Yes. In Russian past tense, the verb agrees with the subject in gender and number.

For слышать, the past tense forms are:

• я слышал — a male speaker
• я слышала — a female speaker
• мы слышали — we heard
• оно/это слышало — it heard

So Я слышал tells you the speaker is male.
If the speaker were female, it would be Я слышала этот слух.

This is a very common question.

• слышать = to hear
  This is about perceiving sound, often passively.
• слушать = to listen (to)
  This is about actively paying attention.

So:

• Я слышал этот слух = I heard this rumor
• Я слушал радио = I was listening to the radio

You normally use слышать with something like a rumor, because a rumor is something you hear, not something you intentionally listen to.

Этот means this.

It has to agree with the noun слух in:

• gender: masculine
• number: singular
• case: here accusative

Since слух is masculine singular, the matching form is этот.

Compare:

• этот слух — this rumor
• эта книга — this book
• это письмо — this letter
• эти люди — these people

It is in the accusative case, but for many masculine inanimate nouns, the accusative singular looks exactly like the nominative singular.

So:

• nominative: слух
• accusative: слух

That is normal.

This happens because слух is:

• masculine
• singular
• inanimate

Compare:

• Я вижу стол — стол stays the same
• Я вижу брата — брат becomes брата because it is animate

So Я слышал этот слух uses the accusative, but the form happens to be unchanged.

No. Слух can mean different things depending on context.

Common meanings include:

• hearing as a sense or ability
  
  • У него хороший слух = He has a good ear / good hearing
• rumor
  
  • Я слышал этот слух = I heard this rumor

In this sentence, слух clearly means rumor, not the physical sense of hearing.

It is understandable, but it can sound a little awkward or repetitive because слух is already something that people typically hear.

Russian speakers often prefer more natural alternatives depending on the context, for example:

• Я слышал об этом — I heard about that
• Я слышал этот слух раньше — I’ve heard that rumor before
• До меня доходил этот слух — That rumor had reached me
• Ходил такой слух — There was such a rumor / a rumor was going around

So the sentence is grammatical, but not always the most idiomatic choice.

Yes, Russian often drops subject pronouns when the meaning is clear from context.

So both can be possible:

• Я слышал этот слух
• Слышал этот слух

However, with the past tense, the verb does not show person clearly the way present tense often does.
For that reason, Я is often kept when the speaker wants to make the subject explicit.

Including Я can also add emphasis or clarity.

Yes, Russian word order is flexible.

The neutral order here is:

• Я слышал этот слух

But you could also say:

• Этот слух я слышал — emphasizes this rumor
• Слух этот я слышал — more marked, often literary or contrastive

Russian changes word order mainly for emphasis, topic, and focus, not because the grammar changes.

So the original sentence is the most straightforward, neutral version.

This is an aspect question.

• слышал = imperfective
• услышал = perfective

Very roughly:

• слышал often means had heard / have heard / was hearing
• услышал often means heard at a particular moment / managed to hear / came to hear

So:

• Я слышал этот слух suggests familiarity with the rumor as a fact or prior experience.
• Я услышал этот слух would sound more like a specific event: I heard this rumor (at that moment / then).

With rumors, Russian often prefers слышал if the point is simply that the speaker has heard it before.

Formally, it is accusative singular masculine, because it modifies the direct object.

But for masculine inanimate nouns, the accusative form of the demonstrative looks the same as the nominative:

• nominative: этот слух
• accusative: этот слух

So the case is accusative by function, even though the form does not change.

If the noun were animate, you would see a clearer difference:

• nominative: этот студент
• accusative: этого студента

Not exactly. The correct preposition form would be об этом слухе, not о этом слухе.

But even Я слышал об этом слухе is not the most natural way to say it in many situations.

Compare:

• Я слышал этот слух — I heard this rumor
• Я слышал об этом — I heard about this
• Я слышал об этом слухе — I heard about this rumor

So об этом слухе changes the meaning slightly:

• direct object: the rumor itself was heard
• prepositional phrase: I heard about the rumor

Both can be possible, but they are not exactly the same structure.

A couple of things may be tricky for English speakers:

• ы in слышал is a Russian vowel that does not exist in English
• The ш is like English sh
• The stress is on the first syllable: слы́шал

A rough guide:

• слы́-шал

The first vowel is the hardest part. It is not exactly ee, ih, or uh. Learners usually need practice with ы across many words.

No, not in normal usage.

Even though слух can mean hearing, the phrase этот слух strongly points to this rumor.

If you wanted to talk about someone’s sense of hearing, you would usually say things like:

• У меня хороший слух — I have good hearing / a good ear
• Он потерял слух — He lost his hearing

So in Я слышал этот слух, the meaning is clearly rumor, not the physical ability to hear.