Questions & Answers about متى انتهت المسرحية؟
Does متى specifically mean "at what time" to match this lesson?
متى (mataa) simply means "when" in general. If you want to be more specific and ask "at what time?" or "at what hour?", you can say في أي ساعة. However, متى is perfectly natural and common to use when asking when an event like a play ended.
Why does the verb انتهت have a ـت (-t) at the end?
In Arabic, verbs must match the gender of their subject. Because the subject, المسرحية (the play), ends with the feminine marker ـة (taa marbuta), the basic past tense verb انتهى (he/it finished) changes to انتهت (she/it finished).
How do I pronounce the transition between انتهت and المسرحية?
The verb انتهت ends in a consonant sound (t), and the word المسرحية starts with a consonant sound when the "a" in "al-" is skipped in connected speech. To avoid having two consonants crash into each other, Arabic adds a short "i" sound to the end of the verb. It is pronounced smoothly together as "intahati l-masrahiyyah".
Is there an easy way to remember the long word for "the play" (المسرحية)?
Yes! It is built directly from the word مسرح (masrah), which means "theater" or "stage". Adding the ـية ending turns it into a related concept meaning a theatrical production or "play".