هل يعرف أحد هذا الشخص؟

هل marks a yes/no question. It is like putting do/does/is/are at the beginning of an English question, but Arabic does not need a separate helping verb.

So:

هل يعرف أحد هذا الشخص؟
= Does anyone know this person?

Without هل, the sentence would normally be understood as a statement, not a question.

In Arabic, the verb itself already carries tense and person information, so you do not need a separate auxiliary like do/does.

In English:

• Does anyone know this person?

In Arabic:

• هل يعرف أحد هذا الشخص؟

Here يعرف already means he knows / does know in the present tense.
So Arabic forms the question with هل rather than adding a word equivalent to does.

Here أحد means anyone or someone, depending on context. In this question, the best translation is anyone.

Although أحد is historically related to the idea of one, in sentences like this it commonly functions as an indefinite person word:

• هل يعرف أحد هذا الشخص؟ = Does anyone know this person?

So in this sentence, do not think of it as the number one.

Arabic often uses the singular masculine as the default form with words like أحد.

So even though English anyone could refer to a man or a woman, Arabic still uses:

• يعرف = singular masculine knows

This is normal and does not mean the speaker is only asking about men.

Because Arabic very often uses verb-subject-object order, especially in straightforward sentences.

So the structure here is:

• هل = question particle
• يعرف = knows
• أحد = anyone
• هذا الشخص = this person

Literally, the order is close to:

• Does know anyone this person?

But natural English reorders it as:

• Does anyone know this person?

Arabic can sometimes vary word order, but verb first is very common.

In this sentence:

• أحد is the subject = anyone
• هذا الشخص is the object = this person

The verb يعرف means knows, so the one doing the knowing is أحد, and the person being known is هذا الشخص.

So:

• أحد = the one who knows
• هذا الشخص = the person who is known

In standard Arabic, the usual pattern for this + noun is:

• هذا الشخص = this person
• هذا الكتاب = this book

So the demonstrative هذا normally comes before the noun in Modern Standard Arabic.

A form like الشخص هذا can appear in some spoken dialects, but in MSA the standard phrasing is هذا الشخص.

In fully vowelled MSA, the sentence is:

هَلْ يَعْرِفُ أَحَدٌ هَذَا الشَّخْصَ؟

The important endings are:

• يعرفُ — the verb is in the indicative
• أحدٌ — nominative, because it is the subject
• الشخصَ — accusative, because it is the object

هذا itself is a demonstrative and does not show the case ending in the usual way, but the noun after it shows the role of the whole phrase. So الشخصَ tells you that this person is the object.

Yes, in a broad sense أحد can point to an unspecified person, so someone is not impossible in explanation. But in a yes/no question like this, English usually prefers anyone:

• Does anyone know this person?

That is the most natural translation here.

Usually يعرف means knows, but with a direct object referring to a person, it can sometimes overlap with recognizes depending on context.

So this sentence could mean:

• Does anyone know this person?
• or in some situations, Does anyone recognize this person?

If the context is about identifying a person in a photo or crowd, English might naturally use recognize, even though Arabic still uses يعرف.

A careful pronunciation is approximately:

hal yaʿrifu ʾaḥadun hādhā ash-shakhṣa?

A few notes:

• هل = hal
• يعرف = yaʿrifu
• أحد = ʾaḥad
• هذا = hādhā
• الشخص = ash-shakhṣ

The sh in الشخص is pronounced because of the written ش. Also, the l of ال is absorbed here, so you say ash-shakhṣ, not al-shakhṣ.

Sometimes, yes. In speech, Arabic can use intonation alone to ask a yes/no question:

• يعرف أحد هذا الشخص؟

But in clear, formal Modern Standard Arabic, especially in writing, هل is the normal and safest choice:

• هل يعرف أحد هذا الشخص؟

So for learners, it is best to use هل when forming this kind of question.