Breakdown of هل كان عند الأستاذ قرص تقليدي؟
هلhal
is / are (question marker)
أستاذustâdh
professor / teacher
عند'inda
at / to have
كانkâna
to be
Questions & Answers about هل كان عند الأستاذ قرص تقليدي؟
How do we say 'had' in this sentence, since there isn't a direct Arabic verb for 'to have'?
In Arabic, you express 'have' using a word like عند (with/at). To make it past tense ('had'), you simply put كان (was) in front of it. So كان عند الأستاذ literally means 'there was with the teacher,' which we understand as 'the teacher had.'
Does كان (was) change based on the teacher or the disc?
It changes based on the thing being owned! In this structure, the literal subject of the sentence is the قرص (disc). Since قرص is a masculine word, we use the masculine verb كان. If the teacher had a feminine object, like a picture (صورة), we would use the feminine كانت instead, even though the teacher himself is male.
Could we use مع (with) instead of عند in this sentence?
You could, but the meaning shifts slightly. Using عند means the teacher owned the disc or had it generally (maybe at home or in his office). If you used مع, it would mean he had the disc physically on his person at that exact moment.
Just as a refresher, why does تقليدي (traditional) come after قرص (disc)?
In Arabic, adjectives always follow the noun they describe. Also, notice that تقليدي doesn't have the prefix for 'the' (ال) attached to it. This is because adjectives must match their nouns: since قرص is indefinite (meaning 'a disc', not 'the disc'), تقليدي must also be indefinite.