Days, Months, Dates and Years in Russian: A Full Guide

A Russian date is not a number the way an English date is. It is an ordinal adjective, agreeing in gender exactly like но́вый or большо́й, standing in for a noun that never gets said out loud. Once that clicks, dates, years and floor numbers all use the same one trick, and this article is that trick applied four times. Days and months (Foundation and Higher tier), personal dates of birth (Foundation and Higher), other dates and years (both tiers) and ordinal floor numbers (Foundation and Higher) are all on the Pearson Edexcel GCSE specification.

Days of the week

None of them are capitalised in Russian, unlike English, and the week is treated as starting on Monday. Using a day of the week inside a time phrase (on Monday, on Saturdays) needs a preposition and a case of its own: в plus the accusative for a single day, в среду́ (on Wednesday), and по plus the dative plural for a habit, по суббо́там (on Saturdays).

Months

Also lower case, and grammatically masculine, every one of them, which matters once you put a month into a case: the genitive of сентя́брь drops the soft sign and adds -я, giving сентября́, and every month ending in -ь does the same (января́, октября́). Март and а́вгуст add -а (ма́рта, а́вгуста), and май becomes ма́я.

The date itself: an ordinal agreeing with an invisible число

Ask for today's date with Како́е сего́дня число́? (literally, which number is today?) and the answer is an ordinal number, neuter, because it agrees with число́ (a date, a numeral), even though the word число́ itself never appears in the answer:

Сего́дня пе́рвое сентября́. - Today is the 1st of September.

Сего́дня второ́е января́. - Today is the 2nd of January.

Сего́дня два́дцать седьмо́е сентября́. - Today is the 27th of September.

Two rules run through every example. First, the ordinal is neuter (пе́рвое, второ́е, not пе́рвый, второ́й), whatever else is happening in the sentence, because the noun it agrees with, число́, is neuter and unstated. Second, the month always follows in the genitive, сентября́, января́, no matter which ordinal comes before it. In a compound ordinal like the 27th, only the last word takes the ordinal form and the case ending; два́дцать stays exactly as it is, and седьмо́е alone carries the ordinal form and the neuter ending. It is a cousin of the last-word rule in Russian numbers, where the last word of a compound decides the case of the noun.

On a date: the same ordinal, moved to the genitive, no preposition

State a fact about a date (today IS the first) and the ordinal is neuter nominative. Say something happens ON that date, and Russian switches the whole phrase into the genitive, with no preposition at all where English needs on:

Мы прие́дем пя́того ма́я. - We will arrive on the 5th of May.

Уро́к начина́ется третьего января́. - The lesson starts on the 3rd of January.

Пя́того and третьего are genitive because Russian marks the date on which something happens with the genitive (the unstated noun is still число́, and you will hear it said aloud when the month is obvious: пя́того чи́сла, on the fifth); English inserts on to do the same job Russian does with a case ending. This is the form your own date of birth needs, below.

Years: only the last piece becomes an ordinal

A year is built the same way as a date, an ordinal agreeing with an unstated год (year), but a year is usually a much longer compound number, and the rule that only the last element changes matters more here than anywhere else:

в ты́сяча девятьсот девяно́сто пя́том году́ - in 1995

Read it apart: ты́сяча девятьсот девяно́сто (one thousand, nine hundred, ninety) stay as ordinary cardinal numbers, completely unchanged. Only the final piece, пять (five), becomes the ordinal пя́тый and then takes the case the sentence needs, here the prepositional after в: пя́том. Году́ is the special prepositional form of год used after в (not годе), and the ordinal is masculine to agree with it: год is doing for the year the job число́ does for the day.

A recent year works identically: в две ты́сячи два́дцать шесто́м году́ (in 2026) leaves две ты́сячи (two thousand) untouched and turns only два́дцать шесть (twenty-six) into the ordinal два́дцать шестой, then declines that last word for case.

Personal date and year of birth

Put a date, and optionally a year, after родиться (to be born), and you have the sentence every learner needs early: how to state when you were born.

Я роди́лся пе́рвого сентября́. - I was born on the 1st of September. (said by a man)

Я родила́сь пе́рвого сентября́. - I was born on the 1st of September. (said by a woman)

Я роди́лся пе́рвого сентября́ ты́сяча девятьсот девяно́сто пя́того го́да. - I was born on the 1st of September, 1995.

Роди́лся/родила́сь is a past-tense reflexive verb agreeing with the speaker's gender, exactly the way every Russian past tense does (see the past tense article). The date after it is genitive, no preposition, following the on-a-date rule above; and when a year is added after the date, it goes fully genitive too, девяно́сто пя́того го́да, rather than the в...году́ shape used for a year on its own.

If the question is about the date rather than the year (Когда́ ты роди́лся?, when were you born), a simpler answer without a verb also works: Мой день рожде́ния - пе́рвое сентября́. (My birthday is the 1st of September.) Here пе́рвое reverts to neuter nominative, because this sentence states a fact about the day, exactly like the plain date phrases at the top of this page, and does not carry an on-a-date meaning.

Ordinal numbers for floors

Russian also uses ordinal numbers to name floors, and the numbering itself is worth a note before the grammar: пе́рвый эта́ж is the ground floor, the same numbering American English uses, and different from the British habit of calling the entrance level the ground floor and the one above it the first floor.

Библиоте́ка на пе́рвом этаже́. - The library is on the ground floor.

Мы живём на тре́тьем этаже́. - We live on the second floor up.

The preposition is на (on), taking the prepositional case, so the ordinal and эта́ж both decline together: на пе́рвом этаже́, на второ́м этаже́, на тре́тьем этаже́. This is the same prepositional case covered in full in the prepositional case article; ordinal numbers decline through it exactly like any adjective.

Mistakes English speakers make

Using a cardinal number for the date. Сего́дня оди́н сентября́ is wrong; the date is always an ordinal, пе́рвое, never the cardinal оди́н.

Putting the month in any case but the genitive. Whatever case the ordinal is in, the month stays genitive: пе́рвое сентября́, пе́рвого сентября́, never сентя́брь on its own after a date.

Adding a preposition where the case is already doing the job. English on the 5th of May inserts on; Russian needs nothing extra, just пя́того ма́я in the genitive. Adding в in front of a day-and-month date is a common but avoidable English-shaped mistake (в does appear before a year-only phrase, в 1995 году́, which is a different structure).

Turning the whole compound number into an ordinal. In a long year or date, only the last word changes. ты́сяча девятьсот девяно́сто never becomes an ordinal shape; leave it as cardinal numbers and touch only the final piece.

Assuming пе́рвый эта́ж matches the British ground floor habit. It does not need to be relearned once you know it, but it catches people out on the first visit: пе́рвый эта́ж is the floor you walk in on, not the one above it.

What to do next

Practise the two-step test on any date: is this a fact about today (neuter ordinal, no case change) or something happening on that date (genitive ordinal, no preposition)? Once that reflex is automatic, say your own date and year of birth out loud until роди́лся or родила́сь followed by the genitive date comes without translating word by word. Russian numbers and the case they take is the article to revisit for the cardinal side of these same numbers, and the Russian course puts dates to work in its calendar and diary material from an early chapter.