Questions & Answers about Ему уже один год.
Why does the sentence start with ему instead of он?
In Russian, you don't say that a person is an age; you express age by saying years are to them. This means the person must be in the Dative case. Ему is the Dative form of он (he), so the sentence literally means "To him [is] already one year."
Where is the verb "is" in this sentence?
Just like in basic sentences (such as "I am a student"), Russian drops the present-tense verb "to be" (am/is/are). Therefore, you just say "To him already one year" without needing a verb.
Why do we use год here, but other times I see года or лет?
The Russian word for "year" changes depending on the number right before it. Because the number here is exactly один (1), we use the basic singular noun год. You will use года for numbers ending in 2, 3, or 4, and лет for 5 and above (and 11-14).
Does один change if we are talking about a female instead of a male?
No, it wouldn't change here. The number один (one) changes to match the gender of the thing being counted, not the person you are talking about. Since год (year) is a masculine noun, we always use the masculine один. Even if we were talking about a girl (Ей один год), the phrase один год stays exactly the same.
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