In conjunction with the recent Союз ТМА-18М mission there have been references to the «годовая» экпедиция of Scott Kelly and Михаил Корниенко, who spent 340 days in space.
My understanding of Russian "year" adjectives is:
- ежего́дный = annual, yearly (happens once a year, every year, e.g., annual meeting)
- годово́й = annual, yearly (characteristic of an entire year, e.g., annual salary, average temperature over an entire year)
- годи́чный = yearlong, one-year (lasting one year)
- годова́лый = one year old (e.g., a one year old child, or полуторагодовалый for an 18 month old child)
- одноле́тний = annual (in the sense of a plant that is not a perennial), OR having the same age (as someone else)
- двуле́тний = biennial (in the sense of a plant that is not annual or perennial, but takes two years to fully develop)
- двухле́тний = two years long, two-year (lasting two years) OR two year old (e.g., a two year old child)
- пятиле́тний = same as above, but for five years
- пятиме́сячный = same as above, but for five months
Annual salary would use годовой because it is not a salary that is paid once a year, but rather is the total salary over the course of a year.
An annual report is годовой отчет because even though it's produced once a year (ежегодный), it's best understood as a summary of an entire year's events.
Tree rings are годичные кольца, I suppose because each one represents a one-year time span.
However, I'm not sure about годовая экспедиция or годовой полёт. Would it make sense to talk about a годичная экспедиция instead, and what nuance does годовая give instead?
The starship Enterprise in Star Trek had a пятилетняя миссия, but if it was a one-year mission instead, would it be a годичная миссия or a годовая миссия? (or perhaps командировка, I'm not sure what the distinction would be between a миссия and a командирока).
