Breakdown of У моей сестры есть говорящий попугай в большой клетке.
мой
my
большой
big
в
in
сестра
the sister
Questions & Answers about У моей сестры есть говорящий попугай в большой клетке.
Why do we say У моей сестры есть… instead of something like Моя сестра имеет говорящего попугая…?
Russian normally doesn’t use a verb meaning “to have” (like иметь) in everyday speech for simple possession.
The most natural pattern for “X has Y” is:
- У + [owner in Genitive case] + есть + [thing in Nominative case]
So:
- У моей сестры есть говорящий попугай.
= “My sister has a talking parrot.”
Literally this pattern is more like “By/at my sister there is a talking parrot,” but it simply means possession.
Моя сестра имеет… is grammatically correct, but in this context feels formal, bookish, or slightly off for normal conversation.
What case is сестры in У моей сестры and why does it end in -ы?
Сестры is in the Genitive singular.
The preposition у (“by/at”) requires the Genitive case, and we are talking about one sister, so:
- Nominative (dictionary form): сестра (sister)
- Genitive singular: сестры
Pattern: many feminine nouns ending in -а change to -ы / -и in the Genitive singular.
So:
- у сестры = “at/by (my) sister” → used to mean “my sister has …”
Why is it моей сестры and not ?