Questions & Answers about الأسد يأكل ما يريد.
Doesn't ما usually mean 'not' or ask a question like 'what'? How do I know it means 'whatever' here?
You are right that ما is often used to ask 'what?' or to negate past tense verbs. However, in this sentence, it connects two ideas and acts as a relative pronoun meaning 'that which', 'what', or 'whatever'. You can tell because it isn't at the beginning of a question, and it is followed by a present tense verb (يريد). Present tense verbs usually use لا for 'not', so ما here naturally reads as 'whatever'.
Could I use مَن instead of ما in this sentence?
No, because ما is used for non-human things, objects, or abstract ideas ('whatever' or 'the thing that'). If you used مَن, it would mean 'whoever' or 'the person who'. Unless the lion is specifically eating people he chooses, ما is the correct word here for 'whatever food he wants'.
The English translation says 'he wants', but lions are animals. Why do we use the 'he' form يريد instead of an 'it' form?
In Arabic, there is no separate 'it' pronoun for animals or objects. Every noun is grammatically either masculine or feminine. Since الأسد (the lion) is a masculine noun, we use the standard masculine 'he' conjugation for both verbs in the sentence: يأكل (he eats) and يريد (he wants).
Why does the sentence start with the noun الأسد instead of the verb يأكل?