القطة تموء.

In careful Modern Standard Arabic, it is pronounced:

al-qiṭṭatu tamū’u

A few pronunciation notes:

• ق is a deep q sound, farther back than English k
• طّ is an emphatic, doubled t
• و in تموء gives a long ū sound, like oo in food
• ء is hamza, a glottal stop, so tamū’u has a little break in it

In less formal pronunciation, learners often hear something closer to al-qiṭṭa tamū’.

الـ is the Arabic definite article, meaning the.

So:

• قطة = a cat / cat
• القطة = the cat

Also, it is pronounced al- here because ق is a moon letter, so the l sound stays. That is why you say al-qiṭṭa, not an assimilated form.

Two separate things are happening:

• طّ has a shadda, which means the consonant is doubled or held a little longer
• ة is taa marbuuṭa, a very common ending on feminine nouns

So قطة is pronounced roughly qiṭṭa.

The ة usually sounds like -a / -ah when you stop on the word, but in full grammatical pronunciation it can behave like -t plus a case ending, as in القطةُ.

Yes, قطة is the feminine form, so literally it means female cat or she-cat.

The masculine form is:

• قط = male cat / tomcat

In beginner materials, though, قطة is often translated simply as cat if the main point is grammar or vocabulary rather than biological sex.

Because in the present/imperfect tense, Arabic uses prefixes to show person, number, and gender.

Here, تـ marks third person feminine singular:

• تموء = she/it meows

Since القطة is feminine singular, the verb matches it.

Compare:

• القطة تموء = The female cat meows
• القط يموء = The male cat meows

Because the last part contains two separate sounds:

• و = the long vowel ū
• ء = hamza, a separate consonant

So تموء is not just tamū. It is tamū’u.

That final hamza creates a small catch in the throat between the vowels. This is a common thing for English speakers to notice in Arabic spelling and pronunciation.

Both are normal.

• القطة تموء
• تموء القطة

The first is noun-first, and the second is verb-first.

Very roughly:

• القطة تموء can feel like The cat, it is meowing / meows
• تموء القطة is a straightforward The cat meows

In a short sentence like this, the difference is usually more about style or focus than basic meaning.

It can mean either one, depending on context.

The Arabic imperfect tense often covers both:

• The cat meows
• The cat is meowing

If the sentence appears by itself, either reading may be possible. Context tells you whether it is a habitual action or something happening right now.

It would be:

القِطَّةُ تَمُوءُ

These endings matter in formal grammar:

• القطةُ ends in -u because it is nominative
• تموءُ ends in -u because the verb is in the indicative

In normal everyday Arabic writing, these short vowels are usually not written, which is why you normally just see:

القطة تموء