18 essential body part words with pronunciation, gender, and their notoriously irregular plurals - because ухо becomes уши, глаз becomes глаза, and nothing follows the rules you just learned.
Body parts are where Russian plurals go rogue. Ухо (ear) becomes уши - not *ухи or *уха. Глаз (eye) becomes глаза with a stress shift. Рука (hand/arm) pluralizes normally to руки, but its genitive plural is just рук - a bare stem with zero ending.
These aren't exceptions - they're suppletive and irregular forms inherited from Old Russian. The oldest, most frequently used words in any language resist regularization. Body parts, used daily for millennia, are exactly those words.
| Russian | Pronunciation | English | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| голова | golova | head | fem.; pl. головы |
| глаз | glaz | eye | masc.; pl. глаза (irreg.) |
| ухо | ukho | ear | neut.; pl. уши (irreg.) |
| нос | nos | nose | masc. |
| рот | rot | mouth | masc.; fleeting vowel: рта |
| зуб | zub | tooth | masc.; pl. зубы |
| язык | yazyk | tongue / language | masc.; dual meaning |
| волосы | volosy | hair | pl.; sing. волос (rare) |
| Russian | Pronunciation | English | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| рука | ruka | hand / arm | fem.; gen. pl. рук |
| нога | noga | leg / foot | fem.; gen. pl. ног |
| палец | palets | finger / toe | masc.; fleeting vowel |
| сердце | serdtse | heart | neut. |
| живот | zhivot | stomach / belly | masc. |
| спина | spina | back | fem. |
| колено | koleno | knee | neut.; pl. колени (irreg.) |
| плечо | plecho | shoulder | neut.; pl. плечи (irreg.) |
| грудь | grud' | chest / breast | fem. |
| кожа | kozha | skin | fem. |
"У меня болит..." is survival vocabulary. At any Russian clinic or hospital, you describe pain with this construction: У меня болит + the body part in nominative. Болит (singular) for one thing, болят (plural) for multiple. Knowing this pattern is more useful than any medical dictionary.
Рука means both hand and arm. Russian doesn't distinguish between them - рука covers everything from shoulder to fingertips. Same with нога (leg + foot). To be specific, you add qualifiers: кисть руки (hand, literally "wrist of the arm") or стопа (foot).
Язык has a double life. Язык means both "tongue" (the body part) and "language." "Русский язык" is "the Russian language," but "покажите язык" means "stick out your tongue." Context always makes it clear.
Slova teaches глаз with its irregular plural глаза and every case form - not just a flat word list.
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