Questions & Answers about Это стул.
Why is there no word for "is" in this sentence?
In Russian, the verb "to be" is usually skipped in the present tense. You simply put the two concepts together: Это стул (literally "This chair").
Since стул is masculine, why do we use это instead of the masculine form этот?
When you are introducing or pointing to an object to say "This is a...", you always use the fixed word это regardless of the noun's gender. You would only use the masculine этот if you were saying "this chair" (этот стул) instead of "this is a chair".
How can I tell what gender стул is?
You can usually figure out a Russian noun's gender by looking at its very last letter. Because стул ends in a consonant (the letter л), it is a masculine noun.
Where is the word for "a" in this sentence?
Russian does not have articles like "a", "an", or "the". The word стул simply means "chair", and we add "a" or "the" in English based on what makes the most natural sense in the situation.
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