Questions & Answers about יש לך המלצה טובה למסעדה ליד הים?
What does יש לך literally mean?
Literally, יש means there is / there are, and לך means to you. So יש לך literally means there is to you.
That is the normal Hebrew way to express possession, so in natural English it becomes you have. In this sentence, with question intonation, it means Do you have ...?
Why is there no separate word like do to make it a question?
Hebrew usually does not use a helper verb like English do in questions.
So a statement and a yes/no question can have the same word order:
- יש לך המלצה טובה... = You have a good recommendation...
- יש לך המלצה טובה...? = Do you have a good recommendation...?
In speech, intonation does the job, and in writing the question mark helps. In more formal Hebrew, you can add האם at the beginning:
- האם יש לך המלצה טובה למסעדה ליד הים?
What exactly is לך?