Lesson 18 - Nǐ yǒu kòng ma? Do you have time?

你 们 好! Nimen hao!

In this lesson, we will learn to ask people if they have time to do something with us. In our next lesson, we will learn how to set up a meeting with a friend.

Dialog

1.
你 有 空 吗?
Nǐ yǒu kòng ma? Do you have (free) time?
有, 我 有 空.
Yǒu, wǒ yǒu kòng. Yes, I have time.

2.
你 有 空 吗?
Nǐ yǒu kòng ma? Do you have time?

对 不 起, 我 现 在 没 有 空, 我 很 忙.
Duì bù qǐ, wǒ xiànzài méi yǒu kòng, wǒ hěn máng.
I'm sorry, I don't have time right now, I am very busy.

Vocabulary

kòng 空 = time, literally “empty” (noun)
duì bù qǐ 对 不 起= I'm sorry
xiànzài 现 在 = now (adv.)
hěn 很 = very (adv.)
máng 忙 = busy (adj.)

Literally speaking, Kòng means “empty”. When asking Nǐ yǒu kòng ma? we actually want to know if the other person has time to do something (together), ie free time.

The term kòng is used very commonly in colloquial language. Another way to ask the same question would be Nǐ yǒu shíjiān ma? Shíjiān (时 间) also stands for “time”. In our answer we can also replace kòng with shíjiān: Wǒ yǒu shíjiān or Wǒ méi yǒu shíjiān.

Duì bù qǐ is a simple way to say “I'm sorry”.

Please remember, that when using the verb yǒu, “to have, to possess”, the negative sentence is constructed with méi. “I don't have” = Wǒ méi yǒu.

Wǒ hěn máng = ”I am really busy”. Please note, that in Chinese, you can construct a sentence with just a subject and an adjective, no need to add any verb in between.

Adjectives, such as máng are generally modified by the adverb hěn (very).