Breakdown of الزبونان في المطعم.
الal
the
فيfî
in / about, regarding
مطعمmat'am
restaurant
زبونzabûn
customer
Questions & Answers about الزبونان في المطعم.
Why does the sentence use الزبونان instead of الزبونين?
الزبونان is the subject of this sentence ("The two customers"). In Arabic, subjects are in the nominative case. For dual nouns, the nominative ending is ـان (-aan). If the two customers were the object of a verb or came right after a preposition, we would use the accusative/genitive ending ـين (-ayn).
Where is the word for "are" in this sentence?
Arabic does not use a present tense "to be" verb (is/are/am) in this type of sentence. It is literally "The two customers in the restaurant." This is a common structure known as a nominal sentence.
What is the singular form of "the two customers"?
The singular form is الزبون (the customer). To make it dual, we just add the nominative dual suffix ـان (-aan) to the end of the singular word.
How is الزبونان pronounced with the "al-" prefix?
Because the letter ز (zay) is a "sun letter," the "L" sound in the الـ (al-) prefix is skipped and the ز is doubled. It is pronounced "az-zabūnān," not "al-zabūnān."