Questions & Answers about У кого есть билет на концерт?
Why does У кого есть билет на концерт? mean Who has a ticket to the concert? What is the literal, word‑for‑word meaning?
Literally, the sentence breaks down like this:
- у – at, by, near (here: with / at someone)
- кого – of whom (genitive of кто – who)
- есть – there is / exists
- билет – ticket
- на концерт – to/for the concert
So a very literal gloss would be:
At whom is there a ticket to the concert?
In natural English, that idea becomes:
Who has a ticket to the concert?
Russian often expresses possession with the structure у + [genitive person] + есть + [thing], literally “at X there is Y,” which corresponds to English “X has Y.”
Why is it кого and not кто? What case is кого?
Кого is the genitive form of кто (who).
The preposition у always requires the genitive case. So:
- кто – nominative (who?)
- кого – genitive (of whom? / whose? / at whom?)
Since the sentence uses у, we must use the genitive:
- у кого – at/with whom
That’s why У кого есть билет…? is correct, and У кто есть билет…? is ungrammatical.