Learn Russian: Это дом, и он здесь. - This is a house, and it is here.

In Russian, all nouns have a gender, which you can usually figure out by looking at the last letter. Nouns ending in a consonant, like дом (house), are masculine. Because дом is masculine, we must use the masculine pronoun он to say "it" when referring back to the house.

Why does the sentence use both это and он?

Это is a pointing word used here to introduce something, meaning "This is..." as in Это дом (This is a house). Once the house has been introduced, we refer to it using its specific gender pronoun. Since дом is masculine, we use он for the second part: он здесь (it is here).

Where is the word for "is" in this sentence?

In Russian, the present tense of the verb "to be" (am, is, are) is almost always skipped. You simply put the subject and the description next to each other. So, Это дом literally translates to "This [is] house", and он здесь means "it [is] here".

Why is there a comma before the word и (and)?

In Russian, you must put a comma before и when it connects two complete thoughts that each have their own subject. Since Это дом (This is a house) and он здесь (it is here) can both stand alone as full mini-sentences, the comma is required.