כמה סמים יש לך? משחק מספרים מצחיק

How do you say “I have” in Hebrew?

The counting game’s refrain — ?כמה יש לך, “how many do you have?” — exposes a famous gap: Hebrew has no verb “to have.” Instead it says “there is to me”: יש לי חתול is literally “there-is to-me a-cat.” Change the ending and the ownership moves: יש לך “you have,” יש לנו “we have.” The kids' wild answers — thousands, a million — all ride on that one construction.

The negative is אין: אין לי זמן — “I have no time,” literally “there-is-not to-me time.” Ask ?…יש לך to check for anything: ?יש לך שקל — “got a shekel?” And bare !יש on its own is an exclamation — “yes! score!”