Questions & Answers about Это большая жёлтая собака.
If I wanted to ask "What kind of dog is this?" to get this answer, which question word would I use?
You would use the feminine interrogative modifier какая, because the noun собака (dog) is feminine. The full question would be: Какая это собака?
Since собака is feminine, why doesn't the sentence start with the feminine эта?
When you use это to mean "this is" to introduce a new thing, it always stays in this default neutral form, regardless of the noun's gender. You only use the feminine эта if you are directly pointing out a specific noun, like in the phrase эта собака (this dog, as opposed to that dog).
Why do both большая and жёлтая end in -ая?
Adjectives must match the gender of the noun they describe. Because собака is a feminine noun, both adjectives take the standard feminine singular ending -ая.
Why is the letter о in собака pronounced like an "a"?
In Russian, the letter о only makes an "o" sound if the spoken stress falls on it. In собака, the stress is on the second syllable (ба), so the unstressed о at the beginning is pronounced as a short "a" sound.
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