Breakdown of У него тёплый лоб.
он
he / it (for a masculine noun) / it (for a neuter noun)
тёплый
warm
лоб
forehead
Questions & Answers about У него тёплый лоб.
Why does this sentence use У него instead of just saying Его лоб (his forehead)?
In Russian, it is very natural to use the У + [Genitive case] construction (literally "at him") when describing someone's physical state or body parts. While you can technically say Его лоб тёплый, the phrasing У него тёплый лоб is much more common and sounds better to native speakers.
Why is the word него used here instead of его?
Whenever a third-person pronoun (like his, hers, or theirs) comes directly after a preposition like у, Russian adds the letter н to the front of it. This just makes the words easier to pronounce together! That is why у + его becomes у него.
Where is the verb "is" in this sentence?
Russian skips the present tense of the verb "to be" (is, am, are). The sentence literally means "At him [is] a warm forehead." You simply place the subject and its description next to each other.
Why are тёплый and лоб in the dictionary form (nominative case)?
Because in this "possession" structure, the thing being described is grammatically the subject of the sentence. Since лоб (forehead) is the subject doing the "being warm", it stays in the nominative case, and the adjective тёплый (warm) simply matches its masculine gender.
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