Breakdown of Эта студентка — жуткая соня, а тот парень — просто тихоня.
а
and (contrastive)
студентка
student (f)
этот
this [f: эта, n: это]
просто
simply, just
Questions & Answers about Эта студентка — жуткая соня, а тот парень — просто тихоня.
Both соня and тихоня end in -я, which usually marks feminine nouns. Why can тихоня be used for парень (a guy)?
These words belong to a special group called common gender nouns (общий род). They typically end in -а or -я but can be either masculine or feminine depending on who they refer to. Since студентка is female, соня acts as a feminine noun here. Because парень is male, тихоня acts as a masculine noun.
If we added an adjective before тихоня to describe the guy (like "a real quiet person"), what gender would it take?
It would be masculine to match the biological sex of the person being described, so you would say настоящий тихоня (a real quiet guy). Even though the noun itself ends in -я, grammatical agreement for common gender nouns strictly follows the actual gender of the person.
How would the first clause change if we were talking about a male student instead of студентка?
Doesn't жуткая usually mean "creepy" or "terrifying"? Why is it used with соня?