Questions & Answers about У мене болить передпліччя.
Why does Ukrainian use У мене here instead of я?
Because this is a very common Ukrainian way to talk about pain.
The structure is roughly:
- У мене = at me / with me
- болить = hurts / aches
- передпліччя = forearm
So the sentence is literally something like At me, the forearm hurts, but the natural English translation is My forearm hurts.
In Ukrainian, the person experiencing the pain is often not the grammatical subject. The body part is.
What case is мене in У мене?
Мене is in the genitive case.
After у / в in this kind of possession-or-experience expression, Ukrainian uses the genitive:
- у мене = I have / my / at me
- у тебе = you have / your
- у нього = he has / his
So in this sentence, у мене does not mean simple location. It functions more like my or I have in English.
Why is передпліччя not in a possessive form like my forearm?