Breakdown of Коли вона хвора, їй хочеться тільки спати.
Questions & Answers about Коли вона хвора, їй хочеться тільки спати.
Ukrainian usually omits the verb “to be” in the present tense when it just links a subject and a predicate (a noun or adjective).
- Коли вона хвора literally: “When she sick”
Understood meaning: “When she is sick.”
The linking verb є (is) is normally dropped in such sentences in the present tense:
- Вона хвора. – She is sick.
- Він студент. – He is a student.
So you don’t see “is”, but it’s understood from context and the form of the adjective хвора (feminine singular, agreeing with вона).
You can say Коли вона є хвора, but it’s unusual here and sounds stylistically marked or overly formal in everyday speech.
In modern Ukrainian:
In normal present‑tense sentences, the copula є is usually omitted:
- Коли вона хвора, їй хочеться тільки спати. – most natural.
Є is used:
- In some emphatic contrasts:
- Він є нашою опорою. – He is our support. (very formal/emphatic)
- In written, formal, or religious language.
- In constructions where its presence avoids ambiguity.
- In some emphatic contrasts:
So for a simple sentence like this one, Коли вона хвора… is the standard, natural form.
Їй is in the dative case and the verb хочеться is in an impersonal construction. Literally the structure is:
- Їй хочеться спати. → To her, it is wanted to sleep.
More naturally: She feels like sleeping / She wants to sleep.
In this pattern:
- There is no explicit grammatical subject.
- The experiencer (the person who feels the desire) is in the dative:
- мені хочеться – I feel like
- тобі хочеться – you feel like
- їй / йому хочеться – she / he feels like
So їй answers кому? (to whom?) – to her.
If you say вона хоче спати, that’s a different, more straightforward construction with вона as the subject and хоче as a normal verb.
Both can be translated “She wants to sleep”, but the nuance is different:
Їй хочеться спати.
- Impersonal, with хочеться.
- Sounds softer, more about a spontaneous feeling or state:
- She feels like sleeping.
- She just wants to sleep (that’s how she feels).
Вона хоче спати.
- Personal construction, with вона as subject and хоче as a regular verb.
- More direct and volitional:
- She wants to sleep. (clear conscious desire)
In your sentence:
- Коли вона хвора, їй хочеться тільки спати.
Emphasizes the state: when she is ill, she just feels like sleeping, it’s what her body/condition makes her want.
Yes, хочеться comes from the verb хотіти (to want).
- Хотіти – to want
- 3rd person singular: він хоче – he wants
- Impersonal reflexive form: хочеться
The ending -ться is the reflexive -ся after a consonant. Here it helps form an impersonal verb:
- хочеться – it is wanted / one feels like (no explicit subject)
Typical pattern:
- Мені хочеться спати. – I feel like sleeping.
- Тобі хочеться їсти. – You feel like eating.
- Їм хочеться тиші. – They feel like having quiet.
So хочеться is an impersonal, reflexive form of хотіти, commonly used to talk about spontaneous desires or cravings.
It’s grammatically correct, just a bit different in feel.
Коли вона хвора, вона хоче тільки спати.
- Clear subject вона, verb хоче.
- Sounds more like a straightforward statement of her will:
- When she is ill, she (consciously) wants only to sleep.
Коли вона хвора, їй хочеться тільки спати.
- Impersonal, dative їй, verb хочеться.
- Sounds more natural in this context and focuses on how she feels because of being sick, not on a deliberate decision.
In everyday usage about physical states (being ill, tired, etc.), …їй/йому хочеться… is usually more idiomatic.
Because коли вона хвора is a subordinate clause of time, and їй хочеться тільки спати is the main clause.
In Ukrainian, a subordinate clause introduced by коли (when) is normally separated from the main clause by a comma:
- Коли вона хвора, їй хочеться тільки спати.
- Коли я втомлений, я рано лягаю спати. – When I am tired, I go to bed early.
You also put a comma if you reverse the order:
- Їй хочеться тільки спати, коли вона хвора.
So the comma is there because of the complex sentence structure (main + subordinate clause), not because of any special property of хвора.
In їй хочеться тільки спати, тільки (only / just) limits what she feels like doing:
- тільки спати – only sleeping, nothing else.
If you move тільки, you change what is being limited/emphasized:
Їй тільки хочеться спати.
- Most naturally: All she does is feel like sleeping / She just wants to sleep (and that’s it).
- Slight shift of emphasis towards the verb хочеться – her only wish is to sleep.
Коли тільки вона хвора, їй хочеться спати.
- тільки limits коли/вона → As soon as she’s even a bit sick / Whenever she is (even) sick, she wants to sleep.
- This is less common and more context‑dependent.
Neutral, most common focus in your sentence is exactly:
- їй хочеться тільки спати – she feels like doing only one thing: sleeping.
Спати is in the infinitive because after хочеться / хоче, you normally use the infinitive to express what action is desired:
- Їй хочеться спати. – She feels like sleeping.
- Він хоче їсти. – He wants to eat.
- Ми хочемо відпочити. – We want to rest.
The noun сон means “sleep” as a thing, not “to sleep” as an action:
- Їй хочеться сну. – She feels like (having) sleep.
- This is possible, but sounds more like a poetic or stylized way of saying she longs for sleep/rest.
In everyday speech, їй хочеться спати with the infinitive is far more common and natural.
All three involve being ill, but with different nuances:
Коли вона хвора – When she is ill (in that state).
- Describes a state.
- Often used for general, habitual situations:
- Коли вона хвора, їй хочеться тільки спати.
When she is sick, she just wants to sleep (this is generally true about her).
- Коли вона хвора, їй хочеться тільки спати.
Коли вона хворіє – When she is ill / when she is being sick.
- Хворіти is an imperfective verb, “to be ill / to be sick (over some time)”.
- Can also describe habitual situations, but with more emphasis on the process or period of being ill:
- Коли вона хворіє, вона не ходить на роботу.
– When she is (in the period of being) ill, she doesn’t go to work.
- Коли вона хворіє, вона не ходить на роботу.
Коли вона захворіє – When she falls ill / when she gets sick (in the future).
- Захворіти is perfective, meaning the onset of illness.
- Often used for future or one‑time events:
- Коли вона захворіє, їй треба залишатися вдома.
– When she falls ill, she should stay at home.
- Коли вона захворіє, їй треба залишатися вдома.
In your sentence, коли вона хвора is best because it talks about her typical state and what she feels like in that state.
You mainly need to change вона / хвора / їй to match gender and number.
For a man:
- Коли він хворий, йому хочеться тільки спати.
- він – he
- хворий – masculine form of “sick”
- йому – to him (dative masculine)
For several people:
- Коли вони хворі, їм хочеться тільки спати.
- вони – they
- хворі – plural form of “sick”
- їм – to them (dative plural)
The verb хочеться stays the same, because it’s an impersonal form and doesn’t agree with the person in dative.
Yes, you can:
- Коли вона хвора, їй хочеться лише спати.
- Коли вона хвора, їй хочеться тільки спати.
Both are correct and very close in meaning: лише and тільки both mean “only / just”.
Nuances:
- тільки – slightly more colloquial, very common in all styles of speech.
- лише – can sound a bit more literary or stylistically elevated, but is also common in everyday speech.
In this sentence, they are practically interchangeable.
Sentence: Коли вона хвора, їй хочеться тільки спати.
Stresses (marked with an accent):
- коли́ – ko‑LY
- вона́ – vo‑NA
- хво́ра – HVO‑ra
- їй – one syllable, stressed: YIY (like English “ye” but longer)
- хо́четься – KHO‑che‑tsia
- ті́льки – TEEL‑ky
- спа́ти – SPA‑ty
Very roughly in Latin letters:
koLY voNA HVOra, yiY KHOchetsia TEELky SPAty.
The main phrase rhythm groups as:
- Коли́ вона́ хво́ра,
- їй хо́четься ті́льки спа́ти.