Mi fa male il braccio sinistro.

In everyday Italian, the most natural way to say that a body part hurts is often fare male.

So:

• Mi fa male il braccio sinistro = literally, My left arm causes pain to me
• Natural English meaning: My left arm hurts

This structure is very common in Italian:

• Mi fa male la testa = My head hurts
• Ti fanno male i piedi? = Do your feet hurt?
• Gli fa male lo stomaco = His stomach hurts

You can express pain in other ways, but fare male is one of the most common and natural patterns.

Mi means to me.

In this sentence, it is an indirect object pronoun. Italian is not literally saying I hurt the left arm or the left arm hurts me in the English sense of injury. It is using the pattern:

• qualcosa fa male a qualcuno = something hurts someone / causes pain to someone

So:

• mi = to me
• ti = to you
• gli / le = to him / to her
• ci = to us
• vi = to you all
• gli = to them

Examples:

• Mi fa male il ginocchio = My knee hurts
• Ti fa male la schiena? = Does your back hurt?
• Ci fanno male le gambe = Our legs hurt

Because the grammatical subject of the verb is il braccio sinistro, which is singular.

Italian agrees the verb with the thing that hurts, not with the person feeling the pain.

So:

• Mi fa male il braccio = braccio is singular, so fa
• Mi fanno male le braccia = braccia is plural, so fanno

This is an important pattern:

• Mi fa male il piede = My foot hurts
• Mi fanno male i piedi = My feet hurt

Even though mi is present, it does not control the verb. The body part does.

Italian often uses the definite article with body parts, especially when it is already clear whose body part it is because of a pronoun like mi.

So instead of saying:

• il mio braccio sinistro

Italian very naturally says:

• il braccio sinistro

because mi already tells us it is my arm.

This is very common:

• Mi lavo le mani = I wash my hands
  literally: I wash the hands to myself
• Mi fa male la testa = My head hurts
• Si è rotto la gamba = He broke his leg

Using mio is not impossible, but it is usually unnecessary unless you want emphasis or contrast.

Here male means pain or badly, as part of the expression fare male.

On its own, male often means badly:

• Parla male l’italiano = He speaks Italian badly

But in fare male, it forms a fixed expression meaning:

• to hurt
• to cause pain

So:

• Mi fa male il braccio = My arm hurts
• Ho mangiato troppo e mi fa male lo stomaco = I ate too much and my stomach hurts

So you should learn fare male as a whole expression.

In Italian, many adjectives normally come after the noun, especially descriptive ones like color, shape, nationality, and physical description.

So:

• il braccio sinistro = the left arm
• la mano destra = the right hand
• una casa grande = a big house

That is the standard order here.

English says left arm, with the adjective first. Italian usually says braccio sinistro, with the adjective after.

Braccio means arm, not hand.

Useful distinctions:

• braccio = arm
• mano = hand
• dito = finger
• avambraccio = forearm

So:

• Mi fa male il braccio sinistro = My left arm hurts
• Mi fa male la mano sinistra = My left hand hurts

If you want to be more specific, Italian can do that, but braccio is the normal general word for arm.

Yes. That is also very common and natural.

You will often hear both patterns:

• Mi fa male il braccio sinistro
• Ho male al braccio sinistro

Both mean essentially the same thing: My left arm hurts / I have pain in my left arm.

The second structure uses:

• avere male a + body part

For example:

• Ho male alla schiena = My back hurts
• Hai male ai denti? = Do your teeth hurt?
• Ha male al ginocchio = His knee hurts

So both are useful and common.

Yes, the verb changes depending on whether the thing that hurts is singular or plural.

Singular:

• Mi fa male il braccio sinistro = My left arm hurts

Plural:

• Mi fanno male le braccia = My arms hurt

If you mention two things, Italian often uses the plural verb because there is more than one subject:

• Mi fanno male il braccio e la mano sinistra = My left arm and hand hurt

The key idea is:

• one thing hurts → fa
• more than one thing hurt → fanno

Yes, you can say:

• Il braccio sinistro mi fa male

That is also correct.

The version with mi fa male first is very common in speech, especially when the main information is the pain itself:

• Mi fa male il braccio sinistro

Putting il braccio sinistro first gives slightly more emphasis to the body part:

• Il braccio sinistro mi fa male, non il destro = My left arm hurts, not the right one

So both are grammatical, but the original order is very natural.

You can simply use the same word order and raise your intonation in speech:

• Ti fa male il braccio sinistro? = Does your left arm hurt?

You can also add words for clarity:

• Il braccio sinistro ti fa male?
• Ti fa ancora male il braccio sinistro? = Does your left arm still hurt?

Italian often forms yes/no questions just with intonation rather than changing word order.

Put non before the pronoun and verb group:

• Non mi fa male il braccio sinistro = My left arm does not hurt

Other examples:

• Non mi fanno male le gambe = My legs don’t hurt
• Non ti fa male la testa? = Doesn’t your head hurt?

The negative particle non usually goes before the verb, and with object pronouns like mi, it comes before the whole unit:

• non mi fa
• non ti fa
• non gli fa

In this sentence, sinistro simply means left.

So:

• braccio sinistro = left arm
• mano sinistra = left hand

However, sinistro can also mean sinister, ominous, or creepy in other contexts, much like the English word sinister (which is historically related).

Examples:

• un rumore sinistro = a sinister / ominous noise

But in body-part expressions, directions, and everyday physical descriptions, it is normally just the ordinary word for left.

You can say a me fa male, but usually only for emphasis or contrast.

Normal, neutral Italian uses the clitic pronoun:

• Mi fa male il braccio sinistro

If you say:

• A me fa male il braccio sinistro

it sounds more like:

• My left arm hurts me / As for me, my left arm hurts
• or contrastive: My left arm hurts, maybe not yours

Often, Italian uses both for emphasis:

• A me mi fa male il braccio sinistro

That kind of doubling is common in spoken Italian, though the simpler standard form is:

• Mi fa male il braccio sinistro

Fa is the present tense of fare.

Specifically:

• fare = to do / to make
• fa = he/she/it does, makes

Here it means hurts as part of fare male.

Past examples:

• Mi faceva male il braccio sinistro = My left arm was hurting / used to hurt
• Mi ha fatto male il braccio sinistro = My left arm hurt / has hurt me

These two past forms are used a bit differently:

• mi faceva male = ongoing, habitual, background pain
• mi ha fatto male = a completed event or specific occurrence

Literally, yes, the structure is close to The left arm causes pain to me. But in normal usage, if someone says:

• Mi fa male il braccio sinistro

it is understood as My left arm hurts.

Because of the pronoun mi, Italian speakers naturally understand that the arm belongs to the speaker unless context suggests otherwise.

So in practice, the sentence is interpreted the way an English speaker expects: it refers to your own left arm.