Archives for: January 2011, 07
День (часть третья)
January 7th, 2011 by DonAlthough normally in Russian you refer to the days of the week using nouns like понедельник and среда, there is an alternate way to do it. You make an adjective out of the day of the week and then combine it with the word день ‘day’. It is not as common as simply using the nouns, but it is still possible. Here is a list of the nouns and their corresponding adjectives:
| Noun | Adjective |
| понедельник | понедельничный |
| вторник | вторничный |
| среда | — |
| четверг | четверговый |
| пятница | пятничный |
| суббота | субботний |
| воскресенье | воскресный |
Note carefully that there is no adjectival equivalent for среда, and notice also that the adjective from суббота is soft. When translating the phrases into English, simply use the noun. Here are a few examples:
| Это был воскресный день, но «мусора» не отдыхают. (source) | It was a Sunday, but cops don't get days off. |
| Псковский почтамт планирует выдавать пенсии по воскресным дням. (source) | The Pskov main post office is planning to distribute pension money on Sundays. |
| Ребята, сегодня последний пятничный день осени. (source) | Guys, today is the last Friday of fall. |
| Наступил четверговый день. (source) | Thursday arrived. |
It would be a mistake to think that all the adjectives are equally acceptable. The phrase «воскресный день» is very common. The next most common is «субботний день». The others you will find in good dictionaries, but they are encountered very rarely. And why is there no adjective from среда? Hard to say. Sometimes in language you have to give up and say, “That's just the way it is.”
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