"A duck is a bird."

Translation: Утка - это птица.

[nscarcella]

Would it be ok to just say "утка птца"? I know it was not one of the options, but still... I don't fully understand where это is required.

[JanisaChatte]

"Утка — птица." is an accepted answer too. In sentences like these, it's not mandatory to have это, but it's added for emphasis.

[het_aapje]

Just to clarify, is "—" always used where we would use to be in English?

[GastonDorren]

Not after a personal pronoun (I, you, etc). I'm Gaston: Я Гастон.

[het_aapje]

Спасибо :))

[Robert_Andersson]

You probably already know this, but encase you don't... the letter «и» is the Russian equivalent of "i" in the Latin alphabet, so «Гастои» would be transcribed as «Gastoi». "Gaston" should be written «Гастон» as «н» is the Russian equivalent of the Latin "n".

[GastonDorren]

Thanks, I corrected it. It's one of several things in Cyrillic that keep tripping me up.

[BampaOwl]

So how would you back-translate "Утка - это птица" into English? (No em-dash on my android Russian keyboard.)

[Akash97416]

When you are using this or it then you have to use это

[Nate172039]

Why is it это and not эта?

[Aaron117009]

Это means "this is" or "it is".

Эта .. this (f)
Этот .. (m)
Это .. (n)
Эти .. (pl)
without "is"

For example:
This is a boy - это мальчик

This boy - этот мальчик

[Paola471570]

I hear "utkà" and not "ùtka": am I the only one?

[Neon_Iceberg]

"ùtka" is correct.

https://forvo.com/word/%D1%83%D1%82%D0%BA%D0%B0/#ru

[Neon_Iceberg]

Btw, in medicine, "утка" is a name for "urinal".

[Fodules]

thank you

[RocketJunk]

Птица is masculine?

[toxic-ks]

Feminine

[LuiRocha]

The п in bird is mute)