Learn Arabic (Modern Standard): هل الفريق في الملعب؟

In Arabic, فريق (team) is grammatically a singular masculine noun. Even though it represents a group of people, you treat the word itself as singular. You would replace it with the singular pronoun هو (he/it), not the plural pronoun هم (they).

Why is there no word for 'is' in this sentence?

Arabic does not use a 'to be' verb (like 'is' or 'are') in present tense sentences. The word هل simply acts as a question marker at the beginning to signal a yes/no question. If you remove هل, you are left with the basic statement الفريق في الملعب (The team [is] in the stadium).

The word for stadium, الملعب, looks related to the word for playing. Are they connected?

Yes! The word ملعب (stadium/pitch) is built from the root letters ل ع ب which relate to playing (like the verb to play). In Arabic, adding a مـ (ma-) prefix to an action's root often creates a word for the place where that action happens. Literally, it means 'place of playing'.

How do the 'al-' prefixes sound in this sentence? Do they blend into the next letter?

No, they do not blend here. Both ف (fa) in الفريق and م (miim) in الملعب are 'moon letters'. This means the 'L' sound in ال (the) is pronounced clearly. You say 'al-fariiq' and 'al-mal'ab'.