Presentative (это)

Pointing Things Out with "Это"

In Russian, you can start building complete sentences right away because the present tense is incredibly simple.

First, Russian has no articles. There is no word for "a," "an," or "the." The word дом can mean "house," "a house," or "the house" depending on the context.

Second, Russian does not use the verb "to be" (is, am, are) in the present tense.

To point something out and say "This is a [noun]," you simply use the word это followed directly by the object or person.

Saying "And"

To connect two nouns, use the word и (and).

Saying "Not"

To make a sentence negative, simply place the word не (not) directly in front of the word you are negating.

You can combine these simple rules to correct a statement and clarify what something is, all without ever needing the word "is"!