Её опыт работы в больнице помогает ей спокойно говорить с пациентами.

Her work experience in the hospital helps her speak calmly with patients.

Breakdown of Её опыт работы в больнице помогает ей спокойно говорить с пациентами.

• говорить: to speak
• с: with
• в: in
• работа: the work
• спокойно: calmly
• помогать: to help
• больница: the hospital
• её: her
• пациент: the patient
• ей: her
• опыт: the experience

Questions & Answers about Её опыт работы в больнице помогает ей спокойно говорить с пациентами.

What is the difference between её and ей in this sentence? They both look like “her”.

These are two different forms of она (she):

• её = her (possessive adjective, or genitive/accusative form)
• ей = to her / for her (dative form)

In the sentence:

• Её опыт работы = Her work experience (whose experience? → possessive)
• помогает ей = helps her (literally “helps to her” → dative)

Why is it опыт работы, not опыт работа?

In Russian, опыт (“experience”) usually takes a noun in the genitive case to say “experience of something”:

• опыт чего? работы – experience of work
• опыт преподавания – experience of teaching
• опыт жизни за границей – experience of life abroad

So опыт работы is a fixed and very common phrase meaning work experience.
Using опыт работа would be grammatically wrong.

Why is it в больнице and not в больницу or на больнице?

The preposition and case depend on meaning:

• в больнице (prepositional) = in/at the hospital (location, where?)
• в больницу (accusative) = to the hospital (direction, where to?)
• на больнице is wrong in standard Russian. With больница you use в, not на, for location.

So here we need в больнице because it’s talking about where she has work experience (in a hospital), not where she is going.

Why is it помогает ей, not помогает её?

The verb помогать (“to help”) takes the dative case for the person who is helped:

• помогать кому? – to help to whom?
  • помогать ей – to help her
  • помогать ему – to help him
  • помогать детям – to help the children

Using её here would be wrong, because её is genitive/accusative or a possessive, not dative.
So помогает ей = literally “helps to her” → “helps her”.

Why is говорить in the infinitive? In English we say “helps her to speak”, but Russian just has one verb “helps speak”.

Russian uses a very common structure:

• помогать кому делать что
  = to help someone do something / to help someone to do something

So:

• помогает ей говорить = helps her (to) speak

You don’t need an extra word like “to” or чтобы here; the pattern помогать + dative + infinitive already covers “helps someone to do something”.

Also note the aspect:

• говорить is imperfective, which fits here because we’re talking about a general ability / regular behavior, not one specific conversation.

Why is it с пациентами and not just пациентам?

Two slightly different patterns are possible in Russian:

1. говорить с кем (with instrumental)

   • говорить с пациентами – to talk with the patients
     This implies a more two-way conversation.

2. говорить кому (with dative)

   • говорить пациентам – to speak to the patients
     This focuses more on one-way speaking (e.g., giving information).

The most natural collocation for a calm, interpersonal conversation in your sentence is говорить с пациентами (talk with patients).

Why is it спокойно говорить, not спокойная говорить or some other form?

Спокойно here is an adverb, formed from the adjective спокойный (“calm”):

• спокойный (adjective) – a calm person, calm voice
• спокойно (adverb) – calmly

Adverbs in Russian often end in -о and describe how an action is done:

• говорить спокойно – to speak calmly
• писать красиво – to write beautifully

So:

• спокойно говорить = to speak calmly
• спокойная would be a feminine adjective (e.g. спокойная женщина – a calm woman), not correct before a verb.

How flexible is the word order here? Can I move parts of the sentence around?

Russian word order is relatively flexible, but not all orders sound equally natural.

Your original sentence is very natural:

• Её опыт работы в больнице помогает ей спокойно говорить с пациентами.

Some possible variations:

• Опыт её работы в больнице помогает ей спокойно говорить с пациентами.
  (Slightly different emphasis: puts опыт first.)

Less natural or awkward:

• Её опыт работы в больнице помогает спокойно говорить ей с пациентами.
  (Understandable, but ей feels oddly placed.)

Don’t split помогает ей говорить too much. Keeping ей close to помогает is usually best for clarity and naturalness.

Could I use разговаривать or общаться instead of говорить? Do they feel different?

Yes, you can, with slight nuance differences:

• говорить с пациентами – to speak/talk with patients
  Neutral, very common.

• разговаривать с пациентами – to have conversations with patients
  Emphasizes the conversational, back-and-forth aspect a bit more.

• общаться с пациентами – to interact/communicate with patients
  Broader: not just talking, but overall communication and contact.

All are grammatically fine.
In many contexts, говорить с пациентами is the most neutral choice.

What about the spelling and pronunciation of её?

Её is written with ё, but in many Russian texts ё is replaced by е, so you might see ее instead.

Pronunciation:

• её is pronounced [йо] in the second syllable: [йи-йо] → ye-YO
• Stress is on the second syllable: еЁ

So:

• её опыт = ye-YO Ó-pyt (approximate English transcription)