مرحبا، هل لديك وقت؟

A careful MSA pronunciation is:

marḥaban, hal ladayka waqtun?

A more practical learner-friendly version is:

mar-ha-ban, hal la-day-ka wakt?

A few sound notes:

• ح in مرحبا is a deeper h sound than English h.
• ق in وقت is q, produced farther back in the mouth than k.
• لديك is usually pronounced ladayka when speaking to a man, and ladayki when speaking to a woman.

In normal speech, people often do not pronounce full case endings, so you may hear something closer to:

marḥaba, hal ladayk waqt?

هل is a question particle used to turn a statement into a yes/no question.

So:

• لديك وقت = you have time
• هل لديك وقت؟ = do you have time?

It does not mean do by itself in the English sense. It simply marks the sentence as a question.

Arabic does not usually use a normal verb equivalent to English to have in sentences like this.

Instead, possession is often expressed with words meaning with, at, or in the possession of.

So لديك وقت is literally something like:

with you is time

Natural English: you have time

Here:

• لدى = with / in the possession of
• ـك = you (masculine singular in full vowelled form)

So لديك means you have or more literally there is, with you.

لديك is made of two parts:

• لدى
• ـك

Breakdown:

• لدى = with / in one’s possession
• ـك = your / you (addressing one person)

So:

• لديك = with you / you have

If fully vowelled:

• to a man: لديكَ
• to a woman: لديكِ

In normal unvowelled writing, both appear as لديك.

Because Arabic often puts the pronoun inside the word itself.

In لديك, the ending ـك already tells you that the sentence is talking to you. So there is no need to add أنت.

Adding أنت would usually be unnecessary unless you want extra emphasis.

وقت means time.

In this sentence it is indefinite, so it means time / some time / any time, not the time.

That is why وقت sounds natural here:

• هل لديك وقت؟ = Do you have time?

If you said الوقت, that would be more like the time, which is a different idea.

So the bare noun وقت is exactly what you want for this meaning.

In fully vowelled MSA, only the pronunciation of لديك changes:

• to a man: هل لديكَ وقت؟
• to a woman: هل لديكِ وقت؟

Without vowel marks, both are usually written the same way:

• هل لديك وقت؟

So context tells you whether it is ladayka or ladayki.

It is standard and natural in Modern Standard Arabic, especially in writing or careful speech.

It sounds polite and neutral.

A very common alternative, especially in everyday spoken Arabic, is:

هل عندك وقت؟

That also means Do you have time?, but عندك is more common in conversation and many dialects.

So a simple comparison is:

• هل لديك وقت؟ = more standard/formal
• هل عندك وقت؟ = more conversational/common in speech

مرحبا means hello or welcome as a greeting.

So the full sentence is really:

• مرحبا، = Hello,
• هل لديك وقت؟ = Do you have time?

It is just a polite way to begin before asking the question.

The fully vowelled form is مرحبًا.

That final mark shows the ending -an. In normal Arabic writing, short vowels are usually omitted, so you usually see:

مرحبا

Both refer to the same word. Learners often first notice this because the pronunciation includes the final -an, even though ordinary writing does not show all the vowels.

Arabic uses its own question mark:

؟

It serves the same function as the English ?, but its shape is reversed.

So:

• English: Do you have time?
• Arabic: هل لديك وقت؟

This is completely normal Arabic punctuation.

The sentence is:

• مرحبا
• هل
• لديك
• وقت

A useful way to understand it is:

• هل = marks a yes/no question
• لديك = you have / with you
• وقت = time

So the structure is essentially:

Hello, do you have time?

Arabic does not need to copy English word order exactly. What matters is understanding the function of each piece.

Some simple answers are:

• نعم، لديّ وقت. = Yes, I have time.
• نعم، لديّ وقت الآن. = Yes, I have time now.
• لا، ليس لديّ وقت. = No, I do not have time.
• آسف، ليس لديّ وقت الآن. = Sorry, I do not have time now.

These are natural follow-ups to هل لديك وقت؟