Год (часть четвёртая)

by Don  

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:

Мы женаты уже один год. We have been married for a year now.

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

Мы женаты только первый год. We are in our first year of marriage.

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:

Мы женаты уже два года. We have been married for two years now.

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

Мы женаты уже второй год. We are in our second year of marriage.

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...

Лулудя отказывается выходить за меня замуж пять лет. Luludya has refused to marry me for five years. (In other words this is now the sixth year, and she still refuses.)
Лулудя отказывается выходить за меня замуж уже шестой год.

1 comment

Comment from: MMM [Visitor]  

“Мы женаты уже один год.”
Как в английском “one” заменяют на “а", так и в русском принято опускать слово “один” и говорить просто: “Мы женаты уже год".

02/07/14 @ 04:36


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