הרופאה אומרת לי לנשום עמוק לפני שהיא בודקת אם יש לי שיעול.

הרופאה means the female doctor.

• רופאה = a female doctor
• הרופאה = the female doctor

The ה־ at the beginning is the Hebrew definite article, like the in English.

If the doctor were male, you would say:

• הרופא אומר לי... = the male doctor tells me...

So the sentence is specifically referring to a woman doctor.

Because the subject, הרופאה, is feminine singular.

In the Hebrew present tense, verbs agree with gender and number:

• אומר = masculine singular
• אומרת = feminine singular
• אומרים = masculine or mixed plural
• אומרות = feminine plural

So:

• הרופאה אומרת = the female doctor says / is saying
• הרופא אומר = the male doctor says / is saying

לי means to me.

It is made from the preposition ל־ = to, plus the suffix ־י = me.

So:

• אומרת לי = tells me / says to me

Hebrew often uses ל־ with a person after verbs like say, tell, give, and so on.

Other examples:

• אומרת לו = she tells him
• אומרת לה = she tells her
• אומרת לנו = she tells us

לנשום is the infinitive form of the verb, meaning to breathe.

In Hebrew, infinitives usually begin with ל־, which often corresponds to English to:

• לנשום = to breathe
• לשבת = to sit
• ללכת = to go

So אומרת לי לנשום literally means tells me to breathe.

This is a very common Hebrew pattern:

• הוא אומר לי לחכות = he tells me to wait
• היא מבקשת ממני לשבת = she asks me to sit

It follows a common Hebrew structure:

[subject] + [say/tell] + [person] + [infinitive]

So here:

• הרופאה = the doctor
• אומרת = says / tells
• לי = to me
• לנשום = to breathe

Together: The doctor tells me to breathe.

Even though English often distinguishes between say and tell, Hebrew לומר can cover both kinds of meaning depending on the structure.

Because Hebrew often uses an adjective where English would use an adverb.

So:

• עמוק literally means deep
• לנשום עמוק means to breathe deeply

This is very natural in Hebrew. Similar examples:

• לחשוב חיובי = to think positively
• לדבר ברור = to speak clearly

There is also a more explicitly adverb-like form, עמוקות, but in everyday Hebrew לנשום עמוק is much more common.

לפני ש־ means before when it introduces a clause.

So:

• לפני = before
• ש־ = that / which / introducing a subordinate clause
• היא = she

Together:

• לפני שהיא בודקת = before she checks / before she examines

This is a very common pattern in Hebrew:

• לפני שאני הולך = before I go
• לפני שהוא מגיע = before he arrives
• לפני שאנחנו אוכלים = before we eat

In standard Hebrew, לפני שהיא בודקת is the normal full form.

The pronoun היא helps clearly mark the subject of the subordinate clause. This is especially useful because present-tense forms like בודקת do not clearly show person by themselves. בודקת can mean:

• I check (if the speaker is female)
• you check (feminine singular)
• she checks

So היא makes it clear that the subject is she.

In this sentence, לפני שהיא בודקת sounds natural and standard.

Yes, future can also be possible in some contexts.

In this sentence, the present tense makes the whole sentence sound like a routine, general procedure, or a live description:

• הרופאה אומרת לי... לפני שהיא בודקת...
• The doctor tells me... before she checks...

Hebrew often uses the present this way.

If you wanted to emphasize a future one-time action, you might also hear:

• לפני שהיא תבדוק = before she checks / before she will check

So the sentence as written is natural for describing what the doctor generally does or what is happening in the present scene.

Here אם means whether, even though English often also uses if for that.

So:

• בודקת אם יש לי שיעול = checks whether I have a cough

This is not a conditional if like:

• אם ירד גשם, נישאר בבית = if it rains, we will stay home

In your sentence, אם introduces an indirect yes/no question:

• Do I have a cough or not?

That is why whether is often the clearest English explanation here.

יש לי שיעול is the normal Hebrew way to say I have a cough.

Literally, it is closer to:

• יש = there is
• לי = to me
• שיעול = a cough

So literally: there is to me a cough.

Hebrew often expresses possession this way:

• יש לי ספר = I have a book
• יש לה שאלה = she has a question
• יש לנו זמן = we have time

So יש לי שיעול is completely normal Hebrew for I have a cough.

Because את is only used before a definite direct object noun, not before a whole clause.

Compare:

• היא בודקת את הילד = she examines the child
  Here הילד is a definite noun, so את appears.

But in your sentence:

• היא בודקת אם יש לי שיעול

The thing being checked is not a noun. It is a whole clause: whether I have a cough. Hebrew does not put את before that kind of clause.

So this is exactly what you should expect.

It can mean either, depending on context.

The basic idea of בודקת is checking / examining / testing.

In a medical context, it can sound like:

• checking whether I have a cough
• examining me to see whether I have a cough

So בודקת is broader than one single English word. The best translation depends on the situation, but the Hebrew is very natural here.