Breakdown of Сегодня у сына уже нет температуры, и он играет в парке.
Questions & Answers about Сегодня у сына уже нет температуры, и он играет в парке.
Russian normally does not use the verb иметь for everyday possession, especially with people.
Instead, it uses the pattern:
- у + Genitive (person) + есть / нет + noun
Literally: у сына нет температуры = “At the son there is no temperature.”
Natural English: “My son doesn’t have a fever.”
Сын не имеет температуры sounds very bookish, unnatural here, and in speech would be avoided. Use у него (у сына) есть / нет for “he has / doesn’t have”.
Сына is the genitive singular of сын (son).
The preposition у (“at, by”) always takes the genitive case when used in this possessive construction:
- у кого? — у сына, у мамы, у врача
So:
- сын (nominative, subject form)
- у сына (genitive, after у)
That is why you see у сына, not у сын.
Температуры is the genitive singular of температура.
With есть / нет in existential/possessive sentences, Russian uses:
- есть + noun in nominative for presence
- нет + noun in genitive for absence
Examples:
- У сына есть температура. – “The son has a fever.” (nominative: температура)
- У сына нет температуры. – “The son does not have a fever.” (genitive: температуры)
So нет requires the genitive: нет температуры, нет денег, нет времени.
In Russian, температура by default often means body temperature, especially in a medical context.
So:
- У ребёнка температура. – “The child has a fever.”
- У сына нет температуры. – “My son doesn’t have a fever.”
If you want to specify air temperature, you usually add a word like воздуха or a number:
- Температура воздуха 20 градусов. – “The air temperature is 20 degrees.”
In this sentence, because we’re talking about a child’s health and playing in the park, температура is naturally understood as fever.
Уже usually means already, but in a negative sentence it often corresponds to “no longer / not anymore.”
- У сына нет температуры. – “My son doesn’t have a fever.” (neutral)
- У сына уже нет температуры. – “My son no longer has a fever / doesn’t have a fever anymore.”
It implies that before he did have a fever, but now that situation has changed. The word highlights this change over time.
Yes, that is grammatically correct. Russian word order is quite flexible. All of these are possible and natural, with slightly different emphasis:
- Сегодня у сына уже нет температуры. (neutral, focus on “today”)
- У сына сегодня уже нет температуры. (slight focus on у сына / today he doesn’t)
- У сына уже сегодня нет температуры. (less typical; might stress “already today”)
The original sentence is the most neutral, but the alternative you suggest is fine.
Russian has only one present tense form, so играет can mean:
- “he plays” (general, habitual)
- “he is playing” (right now / today)
Context decides.
In Сегодня у сына уже нет температуры, и он играет в парке, the time word сегодня suggests a current situation, so natural English is:
- “Today my son no longer has a fever, and he is playing in the park.”
To make “right now” very explicit, you could say:
- Сегодня у сына уже нет температуры, и сейчас он играет в парке.
В usually means “in, inside” some space or area; на often means “on, on top of, at” a surface or certain open locations.
With парк (park), Russian uses в:
- в парке – “in the park” (inside the area of the park)
So:
- играть в парке – “play in the park”
На парке would be wrong here; it would sound like “on top of the park” (like a roof), which makes no sense.
Парке is the prepositional singular of парк.
The preposition в with a location meaning (“in, inside”) normally takes the prepositional case:
- где? – в парке, в школе, в Москве, в доме
So:
- парк (nominative: “park” as a subject or object)
- в парке (prepositional: “in the park”)
Grammatically, you can drop он, and people sometimes do, especially in informal speech when it is absolutely clear who is being talked about:
- Сегодня у сына уже нет температуры и играет в парке.
However, this can sound a bit clumsy or ambiguous in writing because it looks like “the fever is gone and is playing in the park.”
Using the pronoun он makes the second clause clear and natural:
- …, и он играет в парке. – “and he is playing in the park.”
So it is better style to keep он here.
There is a comma because we have two independent clauses joined by и:
- Сегодня у сына уже нет температуры
- он играет в парке
In Russian, when и connects two separate clauses with their own verbs (here нет and играет), a comma is usually required:
- … нет температуры, и он играет …
If и were just joining two words or short phrases within one clause, there would be no comma:
- Он играет в парке и на площадке. – “He plays in the park and on the playground.”
Играть / сыграть is the aspect pair:
- играть – imperfective
- сыграть – perfective
Here we use играет (imperfective) because we describe an ongoing process / state (“he is playing”) rather than a completed, one-time result.
Perfective (сыграл) would mean something like “he played (and finished)” and would not fit this present-time, in-progress meaning.
Literally, у сына is “at the son,” so strictly speaking there is no possessive pronoun.
In practice, in context like this (talking about someone’s child and his health), у сына will usually be understood as “my son” if you are talking about your own child. Russian often omits possessive pronouns when it is clear from context whose relative we mean:
- У жены завтра выходной. – usually “My wife has a day off tomorrow.”
- У сына уже нет температуры. – usually “My son no longer has a fever.”
If you really need to be explicit, you can say:
- Сегодня у моего сына уже нет температуры… – “Today my son no longer has a fever…”