Puer respondet: “Mihi collum non dolet, sed genu et dorsum dolent.”

Because Latin often uses the dative with verbs like dolet.

• mihi = to me / for me
• ego = I
• meus = my

So Mihi collum dolet literally means something like The neck is painful to me, which is the natural Latin way to say My neck hurts.

With body parts, Latin often does not use meum, meum, mea if the owner is already clear from the dative.

Mihi is dative singular of ego.

Here it is the person affected by the pain:

• mihi collum dolet = my neck hurts
• literally: the neck hurts to me

This is a very common Latin construction with dolet and similar verbs.

They are nominative singular, because they are the subjects of dolet / dolent.

• collum = neck
• genu = knee
• dorsum = back

Even though English says my neck hurts, Latin structures it more like:

• the neck hurts to me
• the knee and back hurt to me

So the body part is the grammatical subject.

Because dolet is singular, while dolent is plural.

• collum is one thing, so: collum dolet
• genu et dorsum are two things joined by et, so: genu et dorsum dolent

This is ordinary subject-verb agreement.

Genu is an unusual noun. It is a fourth-declension neuter noun.

That means its nominative singular is genu, not something like genus or genum.

Some important forms are:

• nominative singular: genu
• genitive singular: genūs
• nominative plural: genua

So in this sentence, genu is correctly singular: the knee hurts.

It is singular.

Even though the form may look unfamiliar, genu here means knee, not knees.

If it were plural, it would be genua.

So:

• genu dolet = the knee hurts
• genua dolent = the knees hurt

Because Latin often leaves out possessive adjectives with body parts when the owner is obvious.

Since mihi already tells you who is affected, Latin does not need to say:

• meum collum
• meum genu
• meum dorsum

So mihi collum dolet naturally means my neck hurts, not just a neck hurts me.

This omission is very common in Latin.

Dolet comes from dolēre, meaning to hurt, to be painful, or to feel pain.

In this sentence it works impersonally from an English point of view, but personally in Latin grammar:

• collum dolet = the neck hurts
• mihi collum dolet = my neck hurts

So the body part is doing the grammatical action of hurting.

Respondet is:

• present tense
• third person singular
• from respondēre = to reply / answer

So Puer respondet means The boy replies or The boy answers.

Because non normally goes before the word or phrase it negates.

So:

• collum non dolet = the neck does not hurt

That is the standard and expected placement.

Sed means but.

It contrasts the two statements:

• Mihi collum non dolet = My neck doesn’t hurt
• sed genu et dorsum dolent = but my knee and back hurt

So sed marks a clear correction or contrast.

Latin word order is more flexible than English word order.

This sentence puts mihi first to foreground the person affected: as for me or to me. Then it gives the body part and the verb.

So:

• Mihi collum non dolet
• literally: To me, the neck does not hurt

That sounds odd in English, but it is perfectly natural Latin.

Latin often arranges words for emphasis, clarity, or style rather than following a fixed English-like order.

Yes.

• collum is a second-declension neuter noun
• dorsum is also a second-declension neuter noun

That is why they end in -um in the nominative singular.

Because neuter nominative singular and accusative singular look the same, learners sometimes wonder about the case. Here they are nominative, because they are subjects.

In restored classical pronunciation, mihi is usually pronounced roughly mih-hee, with the h lightly heard.

A simple guide for the whole sentence in classical pronunciation would be:

Puer respondet: Mihi collum non dolet, sed genu et dorsum dolent.

roughly:

POO-er ray-SPON-det: MEE-hee KOL-lum non DOH-let, sed GEN-oo et DOR-soom DOH-lent

If you are using an ecclesiastical pronunciation system, some details may differ, but mihi is still commonly pronounced close to mee-kee or mee-hee depending on teaching tradition.

Possibly, but it would not mean exactly the same thing.

• collum usually means neck
• cervix often refers more specifically to the back of the neck / nape, though usage can overlap

So collum is a very natural choice for a simple beginner sentence about body pain. It is not just an arbitrary synonym.

Because respondet introduces what the boy says.

So the structure is:

• Puer respondet = The boy replies
• then the actual reply follows

Modern editions use punctuation such as a colon and quotation marks, but classical Latin manuscripts did not use punctuation in the same modern way. The punctuation here is for the reader’s convenience, not a special grammatical rule of Latin itself.