"У тебя есть брат?"
Translation:Do you have a brother?
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214
У тебя есть брат? is the most common version. Есть ли у тебя брат? is also fine, but less used.
Russian doesn't use a verb "to have" in the present tense.
Instead, they use a construction with a preposition, "at me there is ....; at you there is ..." etc.:
- у меня есть - at me there is = 'I have'
- у тебя есть - at you there is = 'you have'
- у него есть - at him/it there is = 'he/it has'
- у неё есть - at her there is = 'she has'
- у нас есть - at us there is = 'we have'
- у вас есть - at you there is = 'you have'
- у них есть - at them there is = 'they have'
Insert the Russian word for "it", in place of your ???. Since Russian nouns can be masculine, feminine or neuter, the firm of the pronoun "it" will change, depending on the gender of the noun to which it refers. Его for masculine and neuter nouns, её for feminine. Then, to make it easier to pronounce, in this construction you add an н. So, У него есть..., У неё есть...
1389
I thought that the inflection (tone of voice) would make the difference so this could be both statement and a question. Now I am not so sure.
Computer speech doesn't show correct intonation here. Don't rely on it and try to find speech of native speakers. Google voice is better: http://goo.gl/4rSdfv
214
You can't delete "есть" randomly. Here, you can drop it if your sentence is rather an answer to the question "Whom do you have?" than "Do you have a brother?"
Why is the audio saying "У" with a long "o" sound??? I thought "У" was a long "u" sound....I have a trip to Russia in 2 weeks and I will probably get killed thanks to this worthless site...
У меня есть X. = I have X.
У меня есть X? = Do I have X?
У тебя есть X. = You have X.
У тебя есть X? = Do you have X?
The difference between statement and question is only in the intonation (in speech) or the punctuation (in writing).
The difference between "I" and "you" is in the pronoun: меня, тебя.