Word
Когда мне будет шестьдесят пять лет, я буду получать пенсию.
Meaning
When I am sixty-five years old, I will receive a pension.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
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?