Glizdka
Key Member
- Joined
- Apr 13, 2019
- Member Type
- Other
- Native Language
- Polish
- Home Country
- Poland
- Current Location
- Poland
Not a teacher
Hello, Rachel!
If I'm correct, the Russian language uses an ordinal number followed by a month in the genitive case to tell what date it is. So, "Четырнадцатое апреля". I remember I was taught the genitive case is mandatory because the nominative case ("Четырнадцатый апре́ль") would sound like there are multiple Aprils, of which the one I'm talking about is number fourteen, and this is not what the sentence is meant to mean.
I believe a similar thing happens in English, and is reflected by of, which is mandatory much like the genitive case in Russian. "Fouteenth April" reads like there's a sequence of Aprils, and April number fourteen is the one the sentence refers to, to me at least.
You don't want a sequence of Aprils; you want a sequence of days within April. This is what of is for. "April fourteen" has the similar feeling, like "Page fourteen", that it's a sequence of Aprils (pages), and it's its number in the sequence.
Am I correct that "The fourteenth of April" is a shorter version of "The fourteenth day of April", where day is omitted?
Is it correct to say "It will have been the fourteenth February the fourteenth in a row I spend alone" if I'm a lonely no-life who's never had someone to spend a Valentine's Day with?
Hello, Rachel!
If I'm correct, the Russian language uses an ordinal number followed by a month in the genitive case to tell what date it is. So, "Четырнадцатое апреля". I remember I was taught the genitive case is mandatory because the nominative case ("Четырнадцатый апре́ль") would sound like there are multiple Aprils, of which the one I'm talking about is number fourteen, and this is not what the sentence is meant to mean.
I believe a similar thing happens in English, and is reflected by of, which is mandatory much like the genitive case in Russian. "Fouteenth April" reads like there's a sequence of Aprils, and April number fourteen is the one the sentence refers to, to me at least.
You don't want a sequence of Aprils; you want a sequence of days within April. This is what of is for. "April fourteen" has the similar feeling, like "Page fourteen", that it's a sequence of Aprils (pages), and it's its number in the sequence.
Am I correct that "The fourteenth of April" is a shorter version of "The fourteenth day of April", where day is omitted?
Is it correct to say "It will have been the fourteenth February the fourteenth in a row I spend alone" if I'm a lonely no-life who's never had someone to spend a Valentine's Day with?
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