יש לך לחם?

Do you have bread?

Breakdown of יש לך לחם?

• יש: there is
• לך: to you
• לחם: bread

Questions & Answers about יש לך לחם?

How do you pronounce יש לך לחם?

Usually:

• to a man: yesh lekha lekhem?
• to a woman: yesh lakh lekhem?

A few notes:

• יש = yesh
• לך changes pronunciation depending on who you are speaking to, even though it is written the same in normal spelling
• לחם is usually pronounced lekhem in Modern Hebrew

So the full sentence sounds roughly like yesh lekha lekhem? / yesh lakh lekhem?

What does each word mean literally?

Word by word:

• יש = there is / there exists
• לך = to you
• לחם = bread

So literally, the sentence is something like:

There is to you bread?

That literal structure is how Hebrew commonly expresses you have in the present tense.

Why doesn’t Hebrew use a word meaning have here?

In Hebrew, possession in the present is usually expressed with יש plus a phrase meaning to someone.

So instead of saying you have bread, Hebrew says something like:

There is bread to you

That is the normal pattern:

• יש לי = I have
• יש לך = you have
• יש לו = he has
• יש לה = she has

So יש לך לחם? is the standard natural way to ask this.