Breakdown of Когда мне будет шестьдесят пять лет, я буду получать пенсию.
я
I
пять
five
год
year
быть
to be
когда
when
шестьдесят
sixty
получать
to receive
пенсия
pension
Questions & Answers about Когда мне будет шестьдесят пять лет, я буду получать пенсию.
Why does the sentence use мне будет instead of я буду for "I will be 65"?
In Russian, you do not use the word "I" to say your age. Instead, age is something that "happens to" you. That is why we use the Dative case pronoun мне (to me) rather than the Nominative я (I). The literal translation is "When to me it will be 65 years."
Why is the verb будет (singular) used here when 65 years is plural?
When expressing age in the future or past, Russian treats the phrase as an impersonal construction. This means the verb "to be" is frozen in the default singular form (будет in the future, or было in the past) regardless of how many years you are talking about.
Why is the word for "years" лет instead of a form of год?
After numbers ending in 5 through 9, 0, and the teens (11-19), Russian requires the genitive plural case. The genitive plural for "years" is a special exception: instead of using a form of год, it uses лет (which historically meant "summers"). Since 65 ends in 5 (пять), we must use лет.
Why does the second part of the sentence use the two-word future tense буду получать?
Receiving a pension is not a one-time completed action; it is an ongoing or repeated process. To show this, Russian uses the imperfective future tense, which is always formed by taking the future form of "to be" (here, буду for "I will") and adding the imperfective infinitive (получать).
Why does the word пенсия change to пенсию?
It changes to the Accusative case because it is the direct object of the sentence (the thing being received). For feminine nouns ending in -я, the Accusative case changes the ending to -ю.
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