Russian Word of the Day

We previously mentioned that if a Russian number phrase is the subject of a verb, except when the number ends in one, it induces neuter singular verb agreement in the past:

There is another exception. If the number is preceded by an adjective in the nominative plural, then the verb shows plural agreement in the past:

Curses. On Saturday I again proposed to Luludya. She insists, despite our five sons, that she can never marry a man who is not Roma. This insistence nonetheless leads me to a certain point of view in this posting. What if Luludya had agreed to marry me? I could have produced many of following sentences.

Let's assume that Luludya and I have been married for more than a year. The first anniversary has passed. In that case, I may freely say:

Interestingly enough, if we use an ordinal number instead of a cardinal number, then we get a different meaning:

The use of the ordinal number indicates that the first year has not yet ended. The same thing happens with other years. If our second anniversary has already passed, I can say:

But if our second anniversary hasn't passed yet, we will say:

Let's say you are working at a company. The fifth anniversary of your employment has already passed. You can say either «Я здесь работаю уже пять лет» or «Я здесь работаю уже шестой год». Both sentences say essentially the same thing, but one uses the word пять, and the other uses the word шестой.

And now to return to reality...