يصل صديقي بحلول المساء.

A careful MSA pronunciation is:

yaṣilu ṣadīqī bi-ḥulūli l-masāʾi

A few notes:

• يصل = yaṣilu
• صديقي = ṣadīqī (my friend)
• بحلول = bi-ḥulūli
• المساء = al-masāʾi; after ل in connected speech, it often sounds like l-masāʾi

In normal pause, final short vowels are often not pronounced, so you may hear something closer to:

yaṣil ṣadīqī bi-ḥulūl il-masāʾ

Yes, يصل is the imperfect form, which often covers both present and future in Arabic.

So depending on context, يصل can mean:

• he arrives
• he is arriving
• he will arrive

In this sentence, بحلول المساء gives a future time reference, so the natural English translation is often My friend will arrive by evening.

If you wanted to make the future more explicit, you could say:

• سيصل صديقي بحلول المساء = My friend will arrive by evening

Because verb-first word order is very common in Modern Standard Arabic.

So:

• يصل صديقي = My friend arrives / will arrive

This is a normal VSO pattern: Verb–Subject–Object/Complement.

You can also say:

• صديقي يصل بحلول المساء

That is more of an SVO pattern and can sound slightly more emphatic about my friend. Both are grammatical, but يصل صديقي is very natural in MSA.

صديقي breaks down like this:

• صديق = friend
• ـي = my

So صديقي literally means friend-my, or in natural English, my friend.

This attached ـي is a possessive suffix. Arabic often expresses possession by attaching pronoun endings directly to nouns.

Examples:

• كتابي = my book
• بيتي = my house
• صديقي = my friend

Because the possessive suffix already makes it definite.

So Arabic does not say:

• الصديقي for my friend

Instead, it says:

• صديقي

Once you add ـي (my), the noun is already definite, since my friend is specific by nature.

بحلول is made of:

• بـ = a preposition that can mean by, with, or upon, depending on context
• حلول = coming, arrival, or occurrence

So بحلول المساء literally means something like:

by the coming of the evening

In smoother English, that usually becomes:

• by evening
• by the evening
• when evening comes
• around evening time

It is a very natural time expression in Arabic.

They are similar, but not identical.

• في المساء = in the evening
• بحلول المساء = by evening / by the time evening arrives

So:

• يصل صديقي في المساء means My friend arrives in the evening
• يصل صديقي بحلول المساء suggests My friend will have arrived by evening or My friend arrives by evening

بحلول often gives a sense of a time limit, deadline, or expected point in time, while في is more general.

Because Arabic often uses the definite article with parts of the day in general time expressions.

So المساء means the evening, but in English we usually just say evening.

Also, in this phrase, المساء comes after حلول in an iḍāfa structure:

• حلول المساء = the coming of the evening

That is why the phrase is naturally formed this way.

In fully vocalized form, the sentence is:

يَصِلُ صَدِيقِي بِحُلُولِ الْمَسَاءِ

Here is the grammar:

• يَصِلُ: imperfect verb in the indicative, ending in -u
• صديقي: the subject
  • It is nominative in function
  • But with the ـي suffix, the case ending is not clearly pronounced in the usual way
• بِحُلُولِ: genitive because it comes after the preposition بـ
• المساءِ: also genitive, because it is the second term of the iḍāfa after حلول

So the last part literally has a chain of genitives:

bi-ḥulūli l-masāʾi

Yes, absolutely.

That version means the same thing overall, but it makes the future more explicit:

• صديقي سيصل بحلول المساء = My friend will arrive by evening

Compared with the original:

• يصل صديقي بحلول المساء

the version with سـ may feel clearer to learners because English often wants an explicit future marker such as will.

So both are good, but:

• يصل = present/future by context
• سيصل = explicitly future

In verb-first sentences in MSA, the verb is often singular, even when the subject is a plural noun.

For example:

• يصل أصدقائي بحلول المساء = My friends arrive by evening

Notice that يصل stays singular in this VSO pattern.

But if the subject comes first, the verb usually agrees fully:

• أصدقائي يصلون بحلول المساء

So Arabic often works like this:

• Verb + plural subject → verb often singular
• Plural subject + verb → verb usually plural

This is a very common feature of MSA word order.

It could technically be either, because the imperfect can express more than one idea. But in normal context, بحلول المساء usually makes it sound like a specific expected event, not a habit.

So the most natural reading is:

• My friend will arrive by evening

If you wanted a habitual meaning, the context would usually make that clearer, such as:

• يصل صديقي بحلول المساء كل يوم = My friend arrives by evening every day

Without extra context, most learners should understand the original sentence as a future event.