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J'ai mal au ventre après le repas.

J'ai mal au ventre après le repas.
My stomach hurts after the meal.
From Lesson 215:The body and appearance·French

Questions & Answers about J'ai mal au ventre après le repas.

Why is it au ventre and not à mon ventre?
In French, you usually do not use possessive adjectives (like mon, ma, mes) with body parts when it is already clear whose body it is. Because you started with J'ai (I have), French just uses the definite article for the body part (in this case, le ventre).
Why does the sentence use J'ai mal instead of a verb like "hurts"?
French doesn't typically say "my body part hurts" as a direct translation. Instead, you use the fixed expression avoir mal à (literally "to have pain at") followed by the body part.
Where does the au come from in au ventre?
It is a mandatory contraction. The expression is avoir mal à, and the word for stomach or belly is masculine: le ventre. In French, the preposition à followed by the definite article le always combines to become au.
Can I use estomac instead of ventre here?
Yes, you could say J'ai mal à l'estomac. However, ventre (belly or abdomen) is much more common in everyday French for a general stomach ache. Estomac refers more specifically to the anatomical organ itself.
Is repas plural here because it ends in an "s"?
No, le repas is singular here meaning "the meal". The word repas naturally ends in an "s" even in its singular form. If it were plural, the article would change to make it les repas.

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