Пометка в черновике помогает мне не забыть дату встречи.

Not exactly.

Пометка usually means a small note, mark, annotation, or reminder. It often suggests something brief and practical, like writing down a date or circling something important.

Заметка is broader. It can mean:

• a note
• a memo
• a written comment
• even a short article in some contexts

So in this sentence, пометка sounds like a little reminder note, which fits well.

Черновик usually means a rough draft or a draft version of something.

After в meaning in, Russian uses the prepositional case for location:

• черновик → в черновике

So в черновике means in the draft or in the rough copy.

In modern usage, черновик can also mean a draft in an app, email, or document. So the phrase can suggest that the reminder is written somewhere in a draft version of something.

Because the subject is пометка, which is singular.

Russian verbs agree with the subject:

• пометка помогает = the note helps
• пометки помогают = the notes help

So помогает is singular because there is only one пометка.

Because помогать normally takes the person being helped in the dative case.

The pattern is:

помогать кому? = to help whom?

So:

• мне = to me
• тебе = to you
• ему = to him

In this sentence, пометка помогает мне literally means the note helps me.

This is a very common Russian structure:

помогать кому + infinitive

It means to help someone do something.

So:

• помогает мне не забыть = helps me not forget

Russian does not need a separate word like English to before the infinitive in this construction.

Other examples:

• Это помогает мне работать. = This helps me work.
• Будильник помогает мне проснуться. = The alarm helps me wake up.

This is about aspect.

• забыть = perfective
• забывать = imperfective

Here не забыть is natural because the idea is to avoid one complete act of forgetting the date. It points to a specific result: the reminder helps make sure the date is not forgotten.

Не забывать would sound more like a repeated or ongoing habit:

• Это помогает мне не забывать даты. = This helps me not forget dates in general.

So in this sentence, не забыть дату встречи fits better because it sounds like not forgetting that particular date.

There are two different things happening:

• дату is accusative singular
• встречи is genitive singular

Why?

1. Забыть takes a direct object, so дата becomes дату:

   • забыть дату = to forget the date

2. Встречи means of the meeting, modifying дата:

   • дата встречи = the date of the meeting

So the whole phrase means:

• дату встречи = the meeting date / the date of the meeting

Yes, it could.

For example:

• Пометка в черновике помогает мне помнить дату встречи.

That is grammatically correct. But не забыть often sounds more natural when talking about a reminder, because reminders are usually thought of as something that prevents forgetting.

Very roughly:

• помнить focuses on the state of remembering
• не забыть focuses on avoiding the mistake of forgetting

So the original sentence is very natural.

No, Russian word order is fairly flexible. The original order is a neutral, natural one:

Пометка в черновике помогает мне не забыть дату встречи.

But you can move things around for emphasis. For example:

• Мне помогает не забыть дату встречи пометка в черновике.
• Дату встречи мне помогает не забыть пометка в черновике.

These are possible, but they sound more marked and emphasize different parts of the sentence.

For a learner, the original order is the safest and most neutral.

Russian has no articles.

So пометка can mean:

• a note
• the note

and дату встречи can mean:

• the date of the meeting
• sometimes just meeting date, depending on context

Whether English uses a or the depends on the situation, not on a separate Russian word.

The stress is:

• поме́тка
• в черновике́
• помога́ет
• мне
• не забы́ть
• да́ту
• встре́чи

So the full sentence is:

поме́тка в черновике́ помога́ет мне не забы́ть да́ту встре́чи

This matters because unstressed vowels often change their pronunciation in Russian. For example, the о in помогает is unstressed and is not pronounced like a clear English o.