Questions & Answers about У меня сильный кашель.
Why does the Russian sentence use сильный (strong) instead of a word for 'bad'?
In English, we say we have a 'bad' cough, but Russian uses сильный (strong) to describe intense physical symptoms like pain or a cough. It is also used for intense weather conditions, like a 'strong' wind. If you translated 'bad cough' literally as плохой кашель, it would sound completely unnatural to a Russian speaker.
I originally learned that 'I have' is У меня есть. Why is есть missing here?
Russian often drops the word есть (is/exists) when describing illnesses, symptoms, or temporary physical conditions. Because you are describing a state you are experiencing rather than emphasizing the physical ownership of an object, you just say У меня followed directly by the symptom.
The word кашель ends in a soft sign. How can I tell what gender it is?
Just as a quick refresher, what grammatical case is being used for меня?
It is in the genitive case. The preposition у (which literally means 'by' or 'at') always forces the noun or pronoun that follows it into the genitive case. Меня is simply the genitive form of the pronoun я (I).
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