Verb 'to Have' in Russian

10/21/2021

What I find funny in Russian is that, unlike many other languages I know, the verb "to be" can almost always omitted. You can go ahead and say: "I dog". I think that is very convenient.

There is a pretty similar story about the verb "иметь". To quote Wiktionary

Иметь is rarely used in Russian, except with non-physical objects and most often in set expressions ("To have in mind," "To have rights," etc.). The most common way to express normal possession is "у + genitive possessor + есть + nominative possession."

The most common way to describe possession is to use genitive forms of pronouns. For instance, "У меня есть Книга" means "I have a book". For negative, one replaces the verb with "нет". "У меня нет Книга" means "you don't have a book". For all this and more I find How to Properly Use the Verb “To Have” in Russian a great source.