Questions & Answers about Это живот, а это лицо.
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 left out. So, Это живот literally translates to "This [is] stomach."
Живот is masculine and лицо is neuter. Why does the sentence use это for both?
When you use это to mean "This is" or "That is", it acts as a fixed pointing word and never changes its ending, regardless of the noun's gender. You only change the gender of this word when it is directly attached to a noun (for example, saying "this stomach hurts" would use the masculine этот живот).
The English translation says "and", so why does the Russian sentence use а instead of и?
In Russian, и is used to simply join things together in a list (like "apples and oranges"). А is used to show a contrast or a switch in topic, similar to "whereas" or "but" in English. Because the sentence is pointing out two completely different body parts in contrast to each other, а is the natural choice here.