У мальчика есть велосипед, а у девочки есть гитара.
The boy has a bicycle, and the girl has a guitar.
Breakdown of У мальчика есть велосипед, а у девочки есть гитара.
а
and (contrastive)
мальчик
boy
девочка
girl
у
at, by
есть
is, there is, to have
велосипед
bicycle
гитара
guitar
Questions & Answers about У мальчика есть велосипед, а у девочки есть гитара.
How does the phrase У ... есть translate to "has"?
In Russian, possession is usually expressed by saying "By [someone] there is [something]." The preposition у means "by" or "at" and requires the owner to be in the Genitive case (мальчика, девочки). The word есть means "is" or "there is".
Why does мальчик change to мальчика?
Because it follows the preposition у, which always requires the Genitive case. For masculine nouns that end in a consonant like мальчик, you form the Genitive case by adding -а to the end, making it мальчика.
Why is the ending for девочка spelled девочки instead of девочкы?
Normally, feminine nouns ending in -а change to -ы in the Genitive case. However, Russian has a strict spelling rule: you can never write the letter ы after г, к, х, ж, ч, ш, or щ. Because the stem of девочка ends in -к, you must use -и instead, resulting in девочки.
Why aren't велосипед and гитара in the Accusative case?
In English, the bicycle and guitar are the direct objects being owned. But in the Russian У ... есть construction, the literal translation is "By the boy a bicycle is." Because the bicycle and guitar are technically the subjects of the sentence performing the action of "being," they stay in the Nominative (dictionary) case.
Why does the sentence use а for "and" instead of и?
The word а is a conjunction used to show a slight contrast or comparison, often translating to "whereas," "while," or a contrasting "and." Because this sentence compares what the boy has to what the girl has, а is the natural choice rather than the simple additive word и.
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