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Questions & Answers about Это мой родственник.
Why is the word for "is" missing in this sentence?
In Russian, the verb "to be" is almost always left out in the present tense. Instead of saying "This is my relative", you literally just say "This my relative".
Родственник is a masculine word. Why does the sentence start with the neuter word это instead of the masculine этот?
When you use это by itself to mean "This is" or "That is" to introduce someone or something, it stays in its fixed neuter form, no matter the gender of the noun that follows. You would only use the masculine этот if it was attached directly to the noun, like in the phrase этот родственник (this relative).
Why do we use мой here for "my"?
In Russian, possessive words like "my" have to match the gender of the noun they describe. Since родственник ends in a consonant, it is a masculine noun, so we must use the masculine form мой.
How would this sentence change if the relative I am introducing is female?
You would use the feminine noun родственница. Because the noun's gender changed, you would also need to change "my" to the feminine form моя. The sentence would become: Это моя родственница.