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У коллеги начался кашель, и она стала чихать прямо на совещании.

У коллеги начался кашель, и она стала чихать прямо на совещании.
My colleague started coughing, and she began sneezing right at the meeting.
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Questions & Answers about У коллеги начался кашель, и она стала чихать прямо на совещании.

Why does the sentence start with У коллеги instead of something like Моя коллега?

У + Genitive is a common way in Russian to show that someone has something happening to them, especially symptoms or sudden events.

  • У коллеги начался кашель literally means At (my/the) colleague, a cough started → natural Russian for “My colleague started coughing.”
    It focuses on the symptom/event (кашель) rather than making the colleague the grammatical subject.
Why is it коллеги? Isn’t the dictionary form коллега?

Yes, the dictionary form is коллега (Nom. sg.). After у, Russian uses the genitive case:

  • у кого? → у коллеги (Gen. sg.)
    So коллега → коллеги is just the genitive singular form.
Who/what is the grammatical subject in У коллеги начался кашель?

The grammatical subject is кашель (because it’s in the nominative and it controls verb agreement).

  • кашель (masculine) → начался (masculine past)
    у коллеги is a possessor/“experiencer” phrase, not the subject.
Why is it начался and not началась or началось?

Past tense in Russian agrees in gender and number with the subject. The subject is кашель, which is masculine singular, so:

  • кашель → начался
    If it were простуда (feminine), you’d get началась простуда.
What’s the difference between начался кашель and она начала кашлять?

Both can translate as “she started coughing,” but the nuance differs:

  • начался кашель = “a cough started” (symptom/event-focused; often sounds more medical/neutral)
  • она начала кашлять = “she began to cough” (person-focused; describes her action)
Why does the second part say она, if коллега can refer to a man too?

коллега is a common-gender noun: grammatically it looks like a feminine-type noun, but it can refer to either sex. The pronoun clarifies the person:

  • она = the colleague is female here
    If it were a male colleague, you’d usually get он стал чихать.
Why is it она стала чихать and not она начала чихать?

Both are possible and very close in meaning. стать + infinitive often emphasizes a change of state / starting up in a slightly more “inceptive” way:

  • стала чихать = “(she) started sneezing / took to sneezing”
  • начала чихать = “began to sneeze” (more neutral)
    In many contexts they’re interchangeable.
Why is чихать (imperfective) used, not чихнуть (perfective)?

чихать is imperfective and suggests an ongoing/repeated action:

  • стала чихать = “she began sneezing” (multiple sneezes / a sneezing fit)
    чихнуть is perfective and usually means one sneeze:
  • чихнула = “she sneezed (once)”
What does прямо add here? Does it mean “straight”?

Here прямо means right / прямо-таки in the sense of “right there, actually, in the middle of it”:

  • прямо на совещании = “right at the meeting / during the meeting”
    It adds emphasis and a bit of surprise/inconvenience.
Why is it на совещании and not в совещании?

Russian commonly uses на with events/activities like meetings, lectures, concerts:

  • на совещании = “at/during the meeting”
    It takes the prepositional case:
  • на чём? → на совещании
Why is there a comma before и?

Because и connects two independent clauses, each with its own subject: 1) У коллеги начался кашель
2) она стала чихать прямо на совещании
Russian typically uses a comma in this structure: …, и ….

Does у коллеги imply “my colleague,” “a colleague,” or “the colleague”?

By itself, у коллеги is unspecified: it can be “my/our/a/the colleague,” depending on context. Russian often omits articles/possessives when they’re obvious from the situation. If you need to specify, you can add:

  • у моей коллеги = “my colleague”
  • у одной коллеги = “one (of the) colleagues”