There is no Hebrew verb meaning have. Not a rare one, not an irregular one — the concept has no verb at all, and the language expresses it with the existential יש plus the preposition ל־. יש לי אח is, word for word, there-is to-me a-brother. Get that structure into your head at the start and the rest of this page follows from it; skip it, and the past tense will look like a set of arbitrary shapes to be memorised.
יש לי אח אחד ואחות אחת, שניהם גדולים ממני.
yesh li akh ekhád ve'akhót akhát, shneihém gdolím miméni
I've got one brother and one sister, both older than me.
יש לך זמן לקפה או שאתה רץ?
yesh lekhá zman lekafé o she'atá rats?
Have you got time for a coffee, or are you rushing off? (to a man)
The frame
| Hebrew | Reads | English |
|---|---|---|
| יש לִי | yesh li | I have |
| יש לְךָ | yesh lekhá | you (m. sg.) have |
| יש לָךְ | yesh lakh | you (f. sg.) have |
| יש לוֹ | yesh lo | he has |
| יש לָהּ | yesh la | she has |
| יש לָנוּ | yesh lánu | we have |
| יש לָכֶם · לָכֶן | yesh lakhém · lakhén | you (pl.) have |
| יש לָהֶם · לָהֶן | yesh lahém · lahén | they have |
Only one word in that paradigm is doing any work: יש is a constant, and everything that changes is the pronoun ending on ל־. Those endings belong to the preposition itself and go on many other prepositions the same way — they are set out on לי, לך, לו. Here, note only that the feminine plurals לָכֶן and לָהֶן are largely confined to careful speech and writing; in conversation Israelis use לכם and להם for mixed and female groups alike.
The possessor does not have to be a pronoun. A noun takes ל־ just as readily, and can stand either side of יש:
יש לה שלושה ילדים והיא עדיין מספיקה ללמוד.
yesh la shloshá yeladím vehí adáyin maspiká lilmód
She's got three kids and she still finds time to study.
להורים שלי יש בית קטן בצפון, אנחנו שם כל אוגוסט.
lahorím shelí yesh báyit katán batsafón, anákhnu sham kol ógust
My parents have a little place up north — we're there every August.
Which word is the subject?
Not the one you expect. In I have a brother, English makes I the subject and a brother the object. Hebrew does the opposite: אח is the subject of יש, and לי is a dative complement — the phrase that says who the brother exists for.
You cannot see this in the present tense, because nothing agrees with anything there. You can see it the moment you move the sentence in time.
Outside the present, one word agrees — and it is not the possessor
The present has no verb, so the past and future are supplied by היה, exactly as they are for the plain existential. And היה agrees with what is possessed, never with who possesses it:
| Possessed thing | Present | Past | Future |
|---|---|---|---|
| ספר (m. sg.) | יש לי ספר | היה לי ספר | יהיה לי ספר |
| ספרים (m. pl.) | יש לי ספרים | היו לי ספרים | יהיו לי ספרים |
| שאלה (f. sg.) | יש לי שאלה | הייתה לי שאלה | תהיה לי שאלה |
| שאלות (f. pl.) | יש לי שאלות | היו לי שאלות | יהיו לי שאלות |
Read that table down the columns, not across. The possessor is I in all twelve cells, and the verb still changes from row to row — because what is changing is the possessed noun. Now swap לי for לנו, לך, להם, and nothing moves at all. The possessor is the one element in the sentence with no influence over the verb whatsoever.
היו לי שני כרטיסים להופעה ובסוף לא הלכנו.
hayú li shnei kartisím lahofa'á uvasóf lo halákhnu
I had two tickets for the gig and in the end we didn't go.
הייתה לי שאלה אחת ושכחתי אותה ברגע שנכנסתי.
haytá li she'elá akhát veshakhákhti otá baréga shenikhnásti
I had one question and I forgot it the second I walked in.
יהיה לנו זמן בסוף השבוע, נדבר אז.
yihyé lánu zman besóf hashavúa, nedabér az
We'll have time at the weekend — let's talk then.
The negative: אין לי
Possession is negated the same way existence is — by swapping יש for אין, not by putting לא in front of anything. There is no *לא יש in Hebrew.
אין לי מכונית, אני נוסע לעבודה באופניים.
ein li mekhonít, aní noséa la'avodá be'ofanáyim
I haven't got a car — I cycle to work. (m. speaker)
In the past the negative behaves like everything else here: לא goes in front of היה, which still agrees with the possession.
לא היה לי כוח להתווכח, אז הסכמתי.
lo hayá li kóakh lehitvakéakh, az hiskámti
I hadn't the energy to argue, so I agreed.
Asking, and answering in one word
A יש question is built by intonation alone — no auxiliary, no word order change, nothing added. The statement and the question are the same string.
יש לך אחים או שאת בת יחידה?
yesh lakh akhím o she'át bat yekhidá?
Have you got siblings, or are you an only child? (to a woman)
And the natural answer is the bare existence-word, which is where English speakers overproduce. English answers have questions with I do or yes, I have one; Hebrew answers with יש or אין on its own — the echo, not a general-purpose yes. כן, יש לי is perfectly ordinary as well. What is different is כן יש לי run together with no pause: that one is emphatic, and it contradicts someone who has just said you haven't.
יש, אבל הם הרבה יותר מבוגרים ממני.
yesh, avál hem harbé yotér mevugarím miméni
I have, but they're a lot older than me.
יש לי את: the argument that will not end
When the thing possessed is definite, everyday Israeli puts את in front of it — as though it were a direct object:
יש לי את המספר שלה, אני אשלח לך.
yesh li et hamispár shelá, aní eshlákh lekhá
I've got her number, I'll send it to you. (colloquial Israeli — what you will hear all day, every day)
יש לי המספר שלה, אבל אני לא בטוח שהוא מעודכן.
yesh li hamispár shelá, avál aní lo batúakh shehú me'udkán
I've got her number, but I'm not sure it's current. (edited register — the same sentence with the את removed, which is what a copy-editor would do)
The objection is the one this page opened with. If המספר is the subject of יש, then את — which marks definite direct objects — has no business there. Speakers who say it are reanalysing the sentence on the European model, with the possessor as subject and the possession as object. The Academy of the Hebrew Language's own note on יש לי את records two things worth knowing: that language guardians fought the construction hard — Moshe Goshen-Gottstein argued in Haaretz on 25 May 1956 that it should be rooted out wherever it appeared — and that researchers of Modern Hebrew have so far found no documentation of it before the second decade of the twentieth century. The earliest sighting anyone has produced is a sketch by the poet Rachel, written for Kvutzat Degania around 1919–1920, in which a labourer says בשביל שיש לי את הסמרטוט שלי — because I've got my own rag (Mirkin, לשוננו לעם נו,ג, 2007). It is nevertheless completely ordinary Israeli speech today. Say it, expect it, and drop the את when you write something that will be edited.
Common Mistakes
1. Making the possessor the subject. The single most common structural error at A1, and it comes straight from I have.
❌ אני יש מכונית
Incorrect — the possessor never stands in front of יש as its subject. It goes into a ל־ phrase: יש לי מכונית.
✅ יש לי מכונית, אבל אני כמעט לא משתמש בה.
yesh li mekhonít, avál aní kim'át lo mishtamésh ba
I've got a car, but I hardly ever use it. (m. speaker)
2. Dropping the ל־ when the possessor is a full noun. With a pronoun the ל is impossible to forget, because it is fused to it. With a noun it is a separate letter, and it goes missing.
❌ ההורים שלי יש בית בצפון
Incorrect — a noun possessor takes ל־ exactly as a pronoun does: להורים שלי יש בית בצפון, or with יש first, יש להורים שלי בית בצפון.
✅ לאחותי יש דירה בשכונה הזאת כבר עשר שנים.
la'akhotí yesh dirá bashkhuná hazót kvar éser shaním
My sister's had a flat in this neighbourhood for ten years.
3. Conjugating the past for the possessor. English I had is one word and it agrees with I, so the pull is very strong — and the result is a sentence that says something else entirely.
❌ הייתי לי ספר
Incorrect — הייתי means 'I was'. The verb agrees with what is possessed, and ספר is masculine singular: היה לי ספר.
❌ היינו לנו הרבה זמן
Incorrect — same error in the plural. זמן is what is possessed and it is masculine singular, so the verb is היה: היה לנו הרבה זמן.
✅ היה לי ספר כזה בילדות, אני זוכר את הכריכה.
hayá li séfer kazé bayaldút, aní zokhér et hakrikhá
I had a book like that as a child — I remember the cover. (m. speaker)
✅ היו לנו ספרים בכל פינה בבית, ועדיין קנינו עוד.
hayú lánu sfarím bekhól piná babáyit, va'adáyin kanínu od
We had books in every corner of the house, and we still bought more.
4. Negating with לא. Every other Hebrew sentence is negated with לא, so this looks like the safe move. יש is the exception, and it has a dedicated negative word.
❌ לא יש לי כסף
Incorrect — לא never stands in front of יש. The negative existential is a separate word: אין לי כסף.
✅ אין לי מזומן, אפשר לשלם בכרטיס?
ein li mezumán, efshár leshalém bekhartís?
I haven't got any cash — can I pay by card?
Key Takeaways
- Hebrew has no verb meaning "have". Possession is existence plus a dative: יש לי אח, literally there-is to-me a-brother.
- The possessed thing is the grammatical subject; the possessor is a ל־ phrase attached to it. English has it exactly the other way round.
- יש is invariable. Everything that changes in the present is the ending on ל־: לי, לך, לו, לה, לנו, לכם, להם.
- Outside the present, היה agrees with the possession, never with the possessor: היה לי ספר · היו לי ספרים · הייתה לי שאלה · יהיו לי שאלות.
- The negative is אין לי, and in the past לא היה לי. There is no *לא יש.
- Questions are made by intonation alone, and the natural short answers are the bare יש and אין.
- יש לי את הספר is normal colloquial Israeli and a long-running prescriptive argument; edited writing drops the את.
Now practice Hebrew
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Start learning Hebrew →Related Topics
- לי, לך, לו: ל־ InflectedA1 — The first inflected paradigm a learner needs, drilled cell by cell. לי is possession (יש לי), recipient (תן לי), the argument of a whole class of verbs (עזר לי) — and the subject-less construction Hebrew uses for how you feel: קר לי, כואב לי, נמאס לי.
- יש and אין: There Is and There Isn'tA1 — יש and אין assert that something exists or does not. In everyday Modern Hebrew each is a single unchanging word — no person, no gender, no number, no tense — though both keep an inflected set (ישנו, ישנם; אינני, אינו) in formal writing and careful speech. The past and the future are supplied by a different verb entirely, and that verb does agree.