Breakdown of После удара локоть немного болит, но тёплый душ помогает расслабиться.
Questions & Answers about После удара локоть немного болит, но тёплый душ помогает расслабиться.
The preposition после (after) always requires the genitive case.
- удар – nominative (dictionary form)
- удара – genitive singular
So:
- после удара = after the hit / after the blow
- после дождя = after the rain
- после работы = after work
You cannot say после удар, that would be grammatically wrong. The genitive is obligatory after после.
Russian does not have articles (no a, an, or the). Whether English would use a or the is determined by context, not by a special word.
So:
- локоть немного болит can mean the elbow hurts a bit (probably my elbow in context).
- тёплый душ can be a warm shower or the warm shower depending on what has been mentioned before.
The listener figures out definiteness from context, not from a specific word like the.
In Russian, with body parts and health, the possessive pronoun (мой, твой, etc.) is often omitted when it’s obvious from the situation whose body part it is.
All of these are natural, but not identical in nuance:
- Локоть немного болит. – My elbow hurts a bit. (implied “my”)
- У меня болит локоть. – literally At me hurts the elbow → My elbow hurts.
- Мой локоть немного болит. – also correct, but sounds a bit more emphatic or contrastive than neutral.
So мой isn’t wrong; it’s just not necessary in everyday speech here.
Yes, in локоть немного болит, the word локоть is the subject.
The verb болеть has several meanings; here it means “to ache, to hurt” (about a body part). In this meaning:
- The body part is the subject.
- болит is 3rd person singular, present tense.
- For plural body parts, you’d use болят.
Examples:
- Локоть болит. – My elbow hurts.
- Зубы болят. – My teeth hurt.
- Спина болит. – My back hurts.
This is different from English, where we think “I hurt my elbow”; in Russian you literally say “The elbow hurts.”
Both are grammatically correct, but there’s a subtle difference in emphasis:
- Локоть немного болит. – more neutral; немного tends to describe how much the elbow hurts.
- Локоть болит немного. – slightly more emphasis on болит; it can sound more like: The elbow hurts, but only a little.
In everyday speech, локоть немного болит sounds more natural here, but both will be understood the same way in context.
In Russian, nouns ending in ь can be either masculine or feminine; the ending alone doesn’t tell you the gender. You have to learn the gender with the noun.
- м.р. (masculine): день (day), гость (guest), словарь (dictionary), локоть (elbow)
- ж.р. (feminine): дверь (door), ночь (night), тетрадь (notebook)
We know локоть is masculine because:
- its adjective would be masculine: правый локоть (right elbow),
- its past-tense verb would be masculine: локоть болел.
In Russian, но (but) usually links two independent clauses, each with its own subject and verb. In this sentence, we have:
- локоть немного болит – the elbow hurts a bit
- тёплый душ помогает расслабиться – a warm shower helps to relax
Since these are two separate clauses contrasted by но, a comma is required:
- … болит, но тёплый душ помогает …
Because душ (shower) is a masculine noun. In Russian, adjectives must agree with the noun in gender, number, and case.
- masculine nominative singular: тёплый душ
- feminine nominative singular: тёплая вода (warm water)
- neuter nominative singular: тёплое молоко (warm milk)
So тёплый is the correct masculine form to match душ.
The -ся (or -сь) ending marks a reflexive verb in Russian.
- расслабить – to relax something/someone (transitive)
- Музыка расcлабит тебя. – The music will relax you.
- расслабиться – to relax (oneself), to become relaxed (reflexive/intransitive)
- Мне нужно расслабиться. – I need to relax.
In …душ помогает расслабиться, the meaning is “helps (one) to relax”, i.e. to relax oneself, so the reflexive form расслабиться is correct.
Both exist:
- расслабляться – imperfective: to be relaxing, to relax regularly, in progress
- расслабиться – perfective: to relax (as a result), to become relaxed
With помогать + infinitive, both aspects are possible, but the nuance changes:
- Тёплый душ помогает расслабиться.
Focus on the result: the shower helps you get relaxed. - Тёплый душ помогает расслабляться.
Focus more on the process/habit: the shower helps you relax (in general / as an ongoing activity).
In this sentence, расслабиться fits well because we’re thinking of the shower helping achieve a state of relaxation after pain.
Russian very often uses verb + infinitive where English might use a noun:
- помогает расслабиться – helps (someone) to relax
- помогает заснуть – helps (someone) to fall asleep
- помогает учиться – helps (someone) to study
The pattern is:
помогать / помочь + (кому?) + инфинитив
Here, кому is implied (helps me / helps you / helps in general), and the infinitive расслабиться expresses what it helps to do.
Saying помогает расслаблению is grammatically possible but sounds much more formal and less natural in everyday speech than помогает расслабиться.
This is an example of an “implicit subject” with a reflexive infinitive.
- Literally: Тёплый душ помогает (кому-то) расслабиться.
- The кому-то (“to someone”) is left out because it’s obvious from context: it means the person who takes the shower or me/you/people in general.
Russian often omits such obvious participants:
- Пора ложиться спать. – (It’s) time to go to bed. (for me/us)
- Здесь нельзя курить. – You/people can’t smoke here.
All mean “a little, a bit”, but they differ slightly in style and tone:
- немного – neutral, standard:
Локоть немного болит. – My elbow hurts a bit. - немножко – more colloquial/diminutive, a bit softer:
Локоть немножко болит. - чуть-чуть – very colloquial, often with a feeling of “really very little”:
Локоть чуть-чуть болит.
In this sentence, немного is a neutral, common choice. All three would be understood and acceptable in everyday speech.