A la meva mare li fa mal el coll i té tos.

Yes — they both point to the same person.

This is a very common Catalan pattern called clitic doubling. The full phrase a la meva mare names the person clearly, and li repeats that idea in a short pronoun form.

So:

• a la meva mare = to my mother
• li = to her

In English, this doubling usually sounds unnecessary, but in Catalan it is very natural, especially with indirect objects.

So A la meva mare li fa mal el coll is the normal way to say that her neck hurts / she has neck pain.

Here a marks the indirect object.

Catalan often uses a before the person affected by something, especially in expressions like fer mal.

So in:

• A la meva mare li fa mal el coll

the person affected is la meva mare, and a introduces that person.

A literal breakdown is something like:

• To my mother, her neck hurts

That is not how English says it, but it helps explain the Catalan structure.

The expression fer mal means to hurt / to cause pain.

Catalan often expresses pain as:

• [indirect object] + fa mal + [body part]

So:

• li = to her
• fa mal = hurts / causes pain
• el coll = the neck

Very literally, this is:

• The neck causes pain to her

Natural English would be:

• Her neck hurts
• or She has neck pain

This structure is extremely common in Catalan:

• Em fa mal el cap = My head hurts
• Li fan mal les cames = Her legs hurt

With body parts, Catalan usually prefers the definite article rather than a possessive when the owner is already clear.

So Catalan says:

• li fa mal el coll

rather than:

• li fa mal el seu coll

English usually says her neck, but Catalan often says the equivalent of the neck, because the person it belongs to is already shown by li.

This is very common with body parts:

• Em rento les mans = I wash my hands
• Li fa mal el braç = Her arm hurts

So el coll is exactly what you would expect here.

Because Catalan often drops subject pronouns when the verb form already makes the subject clear.

In this sentence, after A la meva mare..., it is already obvious that the next verb té refers to she / my mother.

So Catalan does not need to say:

• ella té tos

It can simply say:

• té tos

This is normal in Catalan. Subject pronouns like jo, tu, ella are often omitted unless you want emphasis or contrast.

Because tenir tos is the normal Catalan way to say to have a cough.

So:

• té tos = she has a cough

English sometimes says:

• She has a cough
• She is coughing

Catalan can also express actual coughing in other ways, but tenir tos is the standard way to describe the condition or symptom.

So in this sentence, té tos fits perfectly.

The accent in té is important.

It marks the verb form of tenir:

• té = he/she has

It also helps distinguish it from other words spelled te without an accent.

So here:

• té tos = she has a cough

The accent is not optional; it is part of the correct spelling.

Yes, Catalan word order is somewhat flexible, although some versions sound more natural in certain contexts.

The given sentence:

• A la meva mare li fa mal el coll i té tos.

puts my mother first, which helps set her up as the topic.

You could also hear things like:

• La meva mare té tos i li fa mal el coll.
• Li fa mal el coll a la meva mare i té tos.

But the original version is very natural, especially if you are talking about your mother as the person affected.

So the word order is not random — it helps organize information and emphasis.

Yes. Catalan also has the verb doldre.

So you can say:

• A la meva mare li dol el coll.

This means essentially the same thing as:

• A la meva mare li fa mal el coll.

However, many learners hear fer mal very often in everyday speech, and it is usually easier to use at first.

So fa mal is a very useful and common pattern to learn well.

Its basic meaning is neck.

In health-related contexts, learners sometimes wonder if it overlaps with English throat. In standard usage, coll is primarily neck, while gola is throat.

So grammatically in this sentence, el coll is simply the neck. If a learner has been shown a broader or symptom-based translation, that is usually because languages do not always divide body vocabulary in exactly the same way in real-life use.

For learning the structure, the important part is:

• li fa mal + body part

and here the body part is el coll.