عندي حمى اليوم.

I have a fever today.

Breakdown of عندي حمى اليوم.

• اليوم: today
• عند: with/at (in one's possession)
• حمى: fever

Questions & Answers about عندي حمى اليوم.

Why does Arabic use عندي instead of a verb meaning have?

In Modern Standard Arabic, there is no everyday verb used exactly like English have in this kind of sentence.

Instead, Arabic often expresses possession with a word like عند plus a pronoun suffix. So:

• عندي literally means at me or with me
• idiomatically, it means I have

That is why عندي حمى is the normal way to say I have a fever.

What exactly is عندي, and how is it built?

عندي is made of:

• عند = at / with / in the possession of
• ي = me / my

So عندي means at me, which Arabic uses to mean I have.

You do not write a space between عند and ي.

Why is there no word for a before حمى?

Arabic does not have a separate indefinite article like English a or an.

So a noun by itself can often mean a/an. Here:

• حمى = a fever

If you made it definite with ال, it would become الحمى, meaning or a specific fever already known from context.