יש מקום פנוי לידי.

יש is the Hebrew way to say there is or there are. In present-tense Hebrew, you usually do not use a separate verb meaning is/are the way English does.

So יש מקום פנוי לידי is literally something like:

There is a free place next to me.

Literally, מקום means place or spot. In real-life situations, though, it often gets translated more naturally as seat or space.

So in a bus or waiting room, יש מקום פנוי לידי would often mean:

There is a free seat next to me.

If you want to be more specific, you could say כיסא פנוי for an empty chair/seat.

Because מקום is a masculine singular noun, and Hebrew adjectives must agree with the noun in gender and number.

• מקום פנוי = a free place/spot
• If the noun were feminine singular, you would use פנויה
• If it were masculine plural, you would use פנויים

So פנוי matches מקום correctly.

Here, פנוי means free, vacant, available, or unoccupied.

In this sentence, it means the place is not taken.

This word is also used in other contexts, for example:

• אני פנוי מחר = I'm free tomorrow (said by a male speaker)
• אני פנויה מחר = I'm free tomorrow (said by a female speaker)

So the basic idea is available / not occupied.

לידי means next to me, beside me, or by my side.

It comes from:

• ליד = next to / beside
• plus the pronoun ending -י = me

So לידי is next to me.

Because in Hebrew, prepositions often attach directly to pronoun endings.

So instead of writing two separate words, Hebrew combines them:

• לידי = next to me
• לידך = next to you
• לידו = next to him
• לידה = next to her

This is a very common pattern in Hebrew.

יש מקום פנוי לידי is the most neutral and natural order.

But Hebrew word order can be flexible for emphasis. For example:

• יש מקום פנוי לידי = neutral
• לידי יש מקום פנוי = puts more emphasis on next to me

Both are grammatical, but the first one is the most straightforward version a learner should know first.

Yes. You can say:

יש מקום לידי

That means there's a place/spot next to me.

Adding פנוי makes it clearer that the place is available and not occupied. Without it, the meaning may still be understood from context, but פנוי makes the sentence more explicit.

No. מקום פנוי can refer to any free spot or available space, not only a seat.

Depending on context, it could mean:

• a seat next to me
• a place on a bench
• a space at a table
• room beside me

Still, in many everyday situations, people will naturally understand it as a free seat/spot next to me.

You would say:

אין מקום פנוי לידי

This means:

There isn't a free place next to me.

Here, אין is the negative form corresponding to יש.

You could say:

יש מקומות פנויים לידי

This means:

There are free places next to me.

Notice two things:

• יש is used for both there is and there are
• the adjective changes to plural: פנויים

No. יש מקום פנוי לידי stays the same whether the speaker is male or female.

Nothing in this sentence has to agree with the speaker's gender.

Compare that with a sentence like I'm free, where the speaker's gender does matter:

• אני פנוי = said by a male
• אני פנויה = said by a female

But in יש מקום פנוי לידי, the adjective פנוי agrees with מקום, not with the speaker.

A simple pronunciation guide is:

yesh ma-KOM pa-NUY le-ya-DI

A rough breakdown:

• יש = yesh
• מקום = ma-KOM
• פנוי = pa-NUY
• לידי = le-ya-DI

The main stress falls on the last syllable of מקום, פנוי, and לידי.