Russian date format

[tisoi.livejournal.com]

I just started a Russian class, and at the top of my homework I've been putting the date in English. I want to start doing it in Russian for practice.

A few questions...

- The correct format is 13 октября 2009-год, correct? Is год necessary? I see it quite often.

- Are the dates pronounced as ordinal or cardinal numbers? For example, would the 13 in the date above be pronounced тринадцать or тринадцатый?

- Is it acceptable to abbreviate the months? And if so, what are the correct abbreviations?

Большое спасибо!

Comments

[oryx_and_crake]

Not really, it is 13 октября 2009 года (note the case of год, and there is no dashes in the date).
It is pronounced тринадцатое (пятое, первое etc.) because of the omitted word число which is neuter.
Note also that if you speak of something that happened on that date, you should put the actual date in genitive.
For example, a date on a document would be Пятое октября, but if you tell someone about some event, you will say Это случилось пятого октября, or Пятого октября я пошел на работу... etc.

You can abbreviate the months in informal writing. First three letters are usually used for that: 3 янв., 5 окт. etc.

[tisoi.livejournal.com]

Why is it года and not год?

Thanks!

[oryx_and_crake]

Because the day belongs to a year, I suppose. It also belongs to a month, that's why the month is also in genitive.

[besisland.livejournal.com]

Тринадцатое (число) октября две тысячи девятого года.
The 13th day of the October of the 2009th year.

[seraph6.livejournal.com]

You could use "год" in construction like this: "13 октября, 2009 год".
But it's quite formal. Without that comma you should say "13 октября 2009 года".

[firebottle.livejournal.com]

"13 [число] октября 2009 года" == "13th [day of] October [of] 2009 year"

[seraph6.livejournal.com]

If you want to shorten writing, I think it's better to use numbers like "3 октября = 3.10", than 3-letter abbrevations. Note, that day always comes first, and month - second (DD.MM.YY - not MM/DD/YY)

[pinky-the-cow.livejournal.com]

Not always, and that can be a problem when dealing with uncertainty in formats of date.
If absolute clarity is needed, one could use roman numbers for the month, like 3.X.2009. I don't think I've seen this other than in hand-written Russian though.

[hartig.livejournal.com]

IMHO, better: 13 октября 2009г.

[nick-spender.livejournal.com]

1)
Most common formats are:
13.10.2009
13 октября 2009
13 октября 2009 г.
But if you want to practice, you can put " 13 октября 2009 года" - it's OK.

2)
ТринадцатОЕ октября 2009
Because тринадцатое ЧИСЛО. It's adjective, neuter.

3) Well, the most common way to abbreviate - is to name month by it number) Like 13.10.09
You can write "окт." - people will understand you. But it's not the "russian way".

[alan-steel.livejournal.com]

"Is it acceptable to abbreviate the months? And if so, what are the correct abbreviations?"

Yes it is. Generally you can abbreviate it by using first 3 letters, except the few months being as short as 4 letters (Март, Июнь, Июль). While some computer algorithms do abbreviate them as Мар, Июн, Июл, those sound are completely unnatural and aren't used anywhere else.

As a last note on the matter - Май is never abbreviated ;)