У новых туфель слишком высокие каблуки, поэтому я их не купила.

Russian usually does not use a verb equivalent to English have in sentences like this.

Instead, it often uses the pattern:

У + possessor in the genitive + thing possessed in the nominative

So:

У новых туфель слишком высокие каблуки
literally means something like: The new shoes have heels that are too high
or more literally: By the new shoes, the heels are too high.

Also, in the present tense, Russian often leaves out есть (is/are), so no verb appears here.

У is the preposition used in this possession/existence pattern.

Compare:

• У меня есть машина = I have a car
• У этого дома большие окна = This house has big windows
• У новых туфель слишком высокие каблуки = The new shoes have heels that are too high

After у, the noun goes into the genitive case, which is why you get новых туфель.

Because у requires the genitive case.

So:

• nominative: новые туфли
• genitive: новых туфель

Both words change:

• новые → новых
• туфли → туфель

This whole phrase means of the new shoes or at the new shoes, depending on how literally you look at it.

Here, туфель is genitive plural.

The base form is:

• туфли = shoes

In this sentence, because of у, it becomes:

• туфель

That form can look unusual at first because it has no ending, but it is a normal genitive plural form.

A learner may expect something like туфлей, but with this word the standard form here is туфель.

Yes, Russian does have a singular form:

• туфля = a shoe

But when talking about footwear as something you buy and wear as a pair, Russian very often uses the plural:

• туфли = shoes

So this sentence is talking about the pair of shoes, not one shoe.

Because каблуки is the grammatical subject of the first clause.

In this structure, the thing being described is in the nominative case:

• каблуки = heels
• высокие agrees with каблуки in plural nominative

So the first clause is built like:

• У новых туфель = the new shoes have
• слишком высокие каблуки = heels that are too high

In other words, the shoes are the possessor, but the heels are the thing actually being described.

Russian often expresses this idea more directly by talking about the heels themselves:

• слишком высокие каблуки = heels are too high

You could also describe shoes as being на высоком каблуке or на высоких каблуках in other contexts, but this sentence specifically focuses on the problem: the heels are too high.

That makes the reason for not buying them very clear.

Слишком means too in the sense of more than is acceptable.

So:

• слишком высокий = too high
• слишком дорогой = too expensive
• слишком поздно = too late

It normally goes before the adjective or adverb it modifies:

• слишком высокие каблуки = heels that are too high

Поэтому means therefore, so, or that’s why.

It connects the first clause (the reason) to the second clause (the result):

• У новых туфель слишком высокие каблуки, поэтому я их не купила.
• The new shoes had heels that were too high, so I didn’t buy them.

It is a very common word for showing cause and result.

Because there are two separate clauses:

1. У новых туфель слишком высокие каблуки
2. я их не купила

Поэтому links them, and in Russian this is normally written with a comma before it.

So the comma works much like in English:

• ..., so I didn’t buy them.

Их means them, referring to туфли (the shoes).

Here it is the direct object of купила (bought), so its function is accusative:

• я их не купила = I didn’t buy them

A useful thing to know is that их has the same form for both genitive and accusative, so you identify the case from the sentence function.

Here, since it answers buy what?, it is accusative.

Russian word order is flexible, but this order is very natural.

• я их не купила = neutral, normal
• я не купила их = possible, but often sounds more emphatic or contrastive

The second version can sound like:

• I didn’t buy them (maybe I bought something else)

So in this sentence, я их не купила is the most natural everyday order.

Because Russian past tense agrees with the gender of the speaker (when the subject is я).

So:

• я купил = I bought (said by a male speaker)
• я купила = I bought (said by a female speaker)

Since the sentence has купила, the speaker is female.

Купить is perfective, and покупать is imperfective.

Here, the speaker is talking about a single completed shopping decision:

• I did not buy them

For that, Russian normally uses the perfective:

• не купила

This means the purchase did not happen as a completed result.

If you used не покупала, it would usually suggest a different nuance, such as:

• I wasn’t buying them
• I didn’t buy them on some occasion / over some period
• I have not been buying them

So не купила is the natural choice here.

Yes — and thinking about it that way can actually help.

A very literal breakdown is:

• У новых туфель = at the new shoes / of the new shoes
• слишком высокие каблуки = too-high heels
• поэтому я их не купила = therefore I didn’t buy them

That literal wording is not natural English, but it shows how Russian builds the idea without using have.

So the natural English meaning is:

• The new shoes had heels that were too high, so I didn’t buy them.