Questions & Answers about Это бабушкин платок.
Why is it бабушкин (masculine) when бабушка (grandma) is a woman?
How exactly is the word бабушкин formed?
It is a possessive adjective. To make it, you take a noun ending in -а or -я that refers to a specific person (like бабушка, мама, or дядя), drop that final vowel, and add the suffix -ин. So the stem бабушк- gets -ин added to it, becoming бабушкин.
Could I just use the genitive case and say Это платок бабушки?
Yes, you absolutely can, and it means the exact same thing. However, using possessive adjectives like бабушкин is much more natural and common in everyday spoken Russian when talking about close family members or friends.
Why does бабушкин look like a short-form adjective here?
Possessive adjectives with the -ин suffix use a mixed declension. This means that in the nominative case (and the accusative case for inanimate objects), they use short endings instead of standard long adjective endings. Since платок is masculine nominative, the adjective gets a zero ending, leaving just бабушкин.
Learn Это бабушкин платок and more in Russian
All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.
- ✓ Practice with interactive exercises
- ✓ Track your progress with spaced repetition
- ✓Learn at your own pace — completely free