Questions & Answers about Это мужской свитер.
Since свитер is masculine, shouldn't we use the masculine word этот instead of это?
When you are simply introducing or identifying something ("This is..."), you always use the unchanging word это, regardless of the noun's gender. You only use the matching masculine demonstrative pronoun этот if you are pointing out a specific item, like in the sentence "Этот свитер мужской" (This sweater is for men).
Is мужской a possessive pronoun here, since the English translation says "men's"?
Why does the adjective мужской end in -ой? Don't masculine adjectives usually end in -ый or -ий?
Masculine adjectives usually end in -ый (like новый) or -ий (like русский), but only when the spoken stress falls earlier in the word. Whenever the stress falls on the very last syllable, the masculine nominative ending is always -ой.
The current lesson is about plurals. How would I change this sentence to say "These are men's sweaters"?
You would say Это мужские свитеры. The starter word это stays exactly the same when making a "These are..." statement. The adjective changes to the plural form мужские, and the noun takes a standard plural ending to become свитеры.
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