Thread: What is the difference between имеет and у?

What is the difference between имеет and у?

For instance:

У неё сандвич.

Vs.

Она имеет сандвич.

"у" is a preposition, roughly translated as "by". The construction "У неё сандвич" literally translates as "by her is a sandwitch". As odd as it looks, this is the most common way of expressing "have" in Russian, and the only way to express possession of something concrete/ physical/ real.

"имеет" is the second-person singular conjugation of the verb "иметь", which means "to have/ to possess", but it tends only to be used in an abstract sense, such as "иметь в виду" - to have in view/ to mean, or "иметь право" - to have the right.

If in doubt, use у+gen.

Thank you Scotcher That is very helpful.

Besides, the verb "иметь" is risky because it is the most common euphemism of the obscene verb equivalent to English "to f**k". Usually if someone makes a small grammatical or semantic variation in the usage of the verb "иметь" it is automatically interpreted in this way.

So I strongly recommend to use only the first variation of your example.

Originally Posted by scotcher

The construction "У неё сандвич" literally translates as "by her is a sandwitch".

I'd say, "by/at her there is a sandwitch".

Originally Posted by scotcher

"имеет" is the second-person singular conjugation of the verb "иметь"

"Имеет" is third-person.

SoftPretzel, иметь could have a sexual connotation in many contexts and sound at least funny, so avoid to use it.

P.S. "Она имеет сандвич" is actually wrong and sounds very unnatural. No one would say so.

Originally Posted by Оля

"Имеет" is third-person.

Ahem.

Oops, so it is.