The Targum preserves the exact phrasing of Pharaoh's summons. I have dreamed a dream, and there is no interpreter for it; and I have heard of thee, saying, that if thou hear a dream thou canst explain it (Genesis 41:15).
Pseudo-Jonathan, redacted in the Land of Israel in the early common era, preserves the grammar exactly. The king has heard a report. He does not know Joseph personally. He is acting on the word of a butler who remembered, reluctantly, a Hebrew youth in a prison. And yet he speaks to this young foreigner with the strongest possible claim: if thou hear a dream thou canst explain it. Not sometimes, not if the stars align — just, flatly, if you hear it, you can read it.
Bereshit Rabbah 89 dwells on the distance between the butler's dismissive description — a Hebrew youth, a slave (Genesis 41:12) — and Pharaoh's direct address. The tradition hears in this a small victory for heaven. The king has filtered out the butler's contempt and heard only the useful claim. When the need is great enough, even powerful men can suspend prejudice for the length of a conversation.
The Aramaic preserves another detail the Sages treasured. Pharaoh does not ask Joseph to produce a prophecy on demand. He says, if thou hear a dream, thou canst explain it. The interpreter is a listener first and a speaker second. Pharaoh's whole court — the chartumim, the wise men — had tried to explain the dream without really hearing it. They had brought their manuals. They had imposed their categories. The king has intuited, through the butler's account, that the Hebrew youth does something different: he listens until the dream tells him what it is.
This sets up Joseph's reply in the next verse, where he will insist that the interpretation itself is from before the Lord (Genesis 41:16). First he will listen to the dream; then he will listen to God about the dream; then he will speak. The Egyptian method was to compress all three into one fast procedure. Joseph will slow it down.
The takeaway is oddly practical. When someone brings you a hard question, the first move is not to answer. It is to listen long enough that the question starts to answer itself. Pharaoh has heard that Joseph can do this. The room is about to see it done.