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How to Say “I Have” in Arabic

When you start learning Arabic, one of the biggest surprises is discovering that there’s actually no single verb for “to have”.

Instead, Arabic relies on prepositions combined with pronoun suffixes to express possession.

Let’s break down how to say “I have” in Arabic using the two most universal prepositions: عند and لـ .

Expressing “I have” with عند

The universal favorite for “I have” is عند . When you want to say you have a physical object, have time, or have an appointment, the word you need is عند . On its own, it literally means “at” or “with”, but when you attach a pronoun to the end, it becomes the main way to say “to have” across all varieties of Arabic.

To say “I have”, you simply add the ي to make it عندي :

عندي بيت I have a house

Asking “Do you have?”

When asking “do you have?”, Arabic changes the ending vowel depending on whether you are speaking to a male or a female:

For a male (you have):

عندَك وقت؟ Do you have time?

For a female (you have):

عندِك وقت؟ Do you have time?

In this Palestinian Arabic clip, notice how the speaker uses عندك (you have) to ask, and adds كان to make كان عندي (I had) for the past.

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In this Egyptian Arabic clip, notice how the woman asks a question using عندك (do you have) and the guy answers with عندي (I have).

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Expressing possession and belonging with لـ

In addition to عند, you can also use لـ , though this is mostly used in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and formal speech.

For example:

لي أخ (I have a brother. — MSA/formal)

While every native Arabic speaker understands لي أخ , in daily conversational dialects people usually prefer عندي أخ

However, attaching لـ directly to a name or noun is common in both MSA and daily spoken Arabic across all regions (including Gulf, Levantine, and Egyptian):