Breakdown of Мой день рождения тридцатого августа.
день
day
мой
my (мой, моя, моё) / mine
август
August
рождение
birth
тридцатый
thirtieth
день рождения
birthday
Questions & Answers about Мой день рождения тридцатого августа.
Why do we use тридцатого instead of тридцатое?
When you want to say on a specific date, Russian uses the genitive case for the ordinal number (words like first, second, thirtieth). We take the neuter form тридцатое (because the hidden word for date, число, is neuter) and change it to the genitive form тридцатого.
How do I pronounce the ending of тридцатого?
The letter г in the genitive adjective endings -ого and -его is always pronounced like an English 'v'. You should pronounce it as if it were written 'тридцатово'.
Why is мой masculine when рождения is a neuter word?
In the phrase день рождения (literally 'day of birth'), the main noun is день (day), which is masculine. Words like 'my' must match the main noun, which is why we use the masculine мой. Рождения is simply in the genitive case meaning 'of birth'.
Why does август end in -а here?
Just like in English when we say 'the thirtieth of August', Russian uses the genitive case. Август is a masculine noun ending in a hard consonant, so we add -а to make it августа.
Learn Мой день рождения тридцатого августа and more in Russian
All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.
- ✓ Practice with interactive exercises
- ✓ Track your progress with spaced repetition
- ✓Learn at your own pace — completely free