Quote Originally Posted by kgcole View Post
That makes sense. I was wondering, Eugene, do you have any tips on how I can know the gendre of a noun that ends in "ь"? Do I just have to memorize which words are which?
Some Russian consonants (ш, ж, ч, щ, ц) do not form hard/soft pairs.
If a noun has one of such consonants before the final ‘ь’ (i. e. it ends in -шь, -жь, -чь, or -щь), then it definitely is feminine.
That's because of a (strange) spelling rule. According to it the letter ‘ь’ must be placed after these consonants (except ц) only if the noun is feminine (this ‘ь’ doesn't affect the pronunciation).

For example:

мышь — feminine (pronounced [mɨʂ])
шиш — masculine (pronounced [ʂɨʂ])

ложь — feminine (pronounced [ɫoʂ])
нож — masculine (pronounced [noʂ])

печь — feminine (pronounced [pʲeʨ])
меч — masculine (pronounced [mʲeʨ])

вещь — feminine (pronounced [vʲeɕː])
клещ — masculine (pronounced [klʲeɕː])