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كان الإسكافي يرقع الحذاء المهترئ.

كان الإسكافي يرقع الحذاء المهترئ.kâna al-iskâfiyyu yuraqqiu al-hidhâ'a al-muhtari'a
The cobbler was patching the worn out shoe.
From Lesson 286:The Cobbler's Shop·Arabic (Modern Standard)

Questions & Answers about كان الإسكافي يرقع الحذاء المهترئ.

Why is the subject placed between كان and يرقع?
To express a continuous past action like "was patching," Arabic uses كان followed by a present tense verb. The most common word order is to put the subject right after كان, making it the subject of that first verb.
Both الحذاء and المهترئ start with ال. Why is that necessary?
In Arabic, adjectives must strictly match the noun they describe in definiteness. Because الحذاء (the shoe) is definite, the adjective modifying it must also take ال. If you dropped the second ال, the phrase would turn into a complete sentence meaning "The shoe is worn out."
Why is the hamza at the end of المهترئ written on a dotless yaa (ئ)?
When a hamza is the final letter of a word, the letter it sits on is determined entirely by the short vowel on the consonant right before it. Since the letter raa before the hamza has a kasra (an "i" sound), the hamza must sit on a matching yaa-shaped seat.
The word المهترئ looks complex. What verb pattern does it follow?
It is an active participle from a Form VIII verb. You can identify this pattern by the مـ prefix with a damma (mu-) and the extra ـتـ (-t-) inserted after the first root letter. The root is هـ ر أ.

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