Breakdown of طلبت وجبة واحدة من المطعم.
الal
the
منmin
from
مطعمmat'am
restaurant
وجبةwajba
meal
طلبtalaba
to order / to request / to seek
واحدةwâhida
one
Questions & Answers about طلبت وجبة واحدة من المطعم.
If this sentence is the answer, how would I ask "How many meals did you order?"
To ask "how many", you use كم followed by a singular noun. So you would ask كم وجبة طلبت؟ (How many meals did you order?). Notice that وجبة (meal) stays singular after كم, even though in English we pluralize it to "meals".
Why does the word for "one" (واحدة) come after "meal" (وجبة)?
In Arabic, the number one acts like a descriptive adjective, so it follows the noun it describes. Just like you would say "a big meal", you literally say "a meal one" (وجبة واحدة). The numbers 3 to 10 go before the noun, but the number 1 always comes after it!
Why did we use واحدة instead of واحد for the number one?
Because the number one acts as an adjective in Arabic, it has to match the gender of the noun. The word for meal, وجبة, is feminine because it ends with the letter taa marbuuta (ة). Therefore, we must use the feminine form واحدة instead of the masculine واحد.
Does طلبت only mean "I ordered"?
When written without short vowel marks, طلبت can mean "I ordered" (pronounced talabtu), "you ordered" to a male (talabta), or "you ordered" to a female (talabti). You have to rely on context to know which one it is. Since this sentence is a straightforward statement, "I ordered" is the most natural translation.
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