يطعم صديقي القطة قرب صندوق فضلات القطط.

A fully vowelled version is:

يُطْعِمُ صَدِيقِي الْقِطَّةَ قُرْبَ صُنْدُوقِ فَضَلَاتِ الْقِطَطِ.

A careful pronunciation is:

yuṭʿimu ṣadīqī al-qiṭṭata qurba ṣundūqi faḍalāti al-qiṭaṭi

A natural English learner-friendly breakdown:

• يُطْعِمُ = yuṭʿimu
• صديقي = ṣadīqī
• القطة = al-qiṭṭata
• قرب = qurba
• صندوق = ṣundūqi
• فضلات = faḍalāti
• القطط = al-qiṭaṭi

Here, يطعم is understood as يُطْعِمُ, which means he feeds.

That comes from Form IV:

• أَطْعَمَ = to feed
• يُطْعِمُ = he feeds / is feeding

This is related to the root ط ع م, which has to do with food, eating, and taste.

Why not he eats? Because without vowel marks, يطعم could also represent يَطْعَمُ, meaning he eats or he tastes. But the rest of the sentence makes feeds the correct reading, because القطة is a direct object: your friend is feeding the cat.

Because verb-first order is very common in Modern Standard Arabic.

This sentence follows a normal Arabic pattern:

• Verb + Subject + Object + Place

So:

• يطعم = feeds
• صديقي = my friend
• القطة = the cat

A very literal word order would be:

Feeds my friend the cat near the litter box.

That sounds odd in English, but it is normal in Arabic.

You could also say:

صديقي يطعم القطة قرب صندوق فضلات القطط.

That is also correct, but it starts with my friend, so it feels a bit more like As for my friend, he is feeding the cat...

The -ي means my.

So:

• صديق = friend
• صديقي = my friend

This -ي is a possessive suffix attached directly to the noun.

So instead of saying a separate word for my, Arabic often adds it to the end of the noun.

Mainly from word order and context.

In a normal verb-first Arabic sentence, the noun right after the verb is usually the subject. So:

• يطعم = feeds
• صديقي = my friend → subject
• القطة = the cat → object

Also, feeding the cat makes sense as an action done by my friend, not the other way around.

A useful detail: with the -ي suffix in صديقي, the noun looks the same in writing regardless of case, so word order becomes especially important here.

Because the verb already includes that information.

يطعم by itself already means:

• he feeds
• he is feeding

Arabic verbs usually tell you the person, number, and gender of the subject.

So the sentence does not need a separate pronoun like هو unless you want extra emphasis.

Because القطة is the thing being fed.

In this sentence:

• صديقي = the one doing the action
• القطة = the one receiving the action

So القطة is the direct object.

If you add full case endings, that becomes clearer:

• القِطَّةُ = the cat, as subject
• القِطَّةَ = the cat, as object

Here it is القِطَّةَ, so it is the object.

Also, the verb is masculine singular because it agrees with صديقي, not with القطة.

قرب means near here.

In school grammar, it is often treated as a noun of place / ظرف used adverbially, rather than a simple preposition in exactly the same way as English near.

That is why it is commonly followed by a noun in the genitive relationship:

• قربَ صندوقِ
• near the box / near a box

So for a learner, the easiest practical idea is:

• قرب + noun = near + noun

Because this phrase is an iḍāfa construction.

An iḍāfa is a noun-plus-noun structure like:

• book of the student
• door of the house
• box of cat waste

In Arabic, the first noun in an iḍāfa usually does not take الـ.

So:

• صندوق فضلات القطط

means something like:

• box of the cats’ waste
• more naturally: the cats’ litter box / the litter box

The definiteness comes from the end of the chain, not from putting الـ on every word.

For the same reason: it is also part of the iḍāfa chain.

The structure is nested:

• صندوق
  • فضلات القطط
• box
  • cats’ waste

And inside that:

• فضلات
  • القطط
• waste
  • the cats

Since فضلات is itself the first word of an iḍāfa, it also stays without الـ.

So the phrase works like this:

• صندوقِ فضلاتِ القططِ

Only the last noun, القطط, carries الـ, and that makes the whole chain definite.

Because فضلات is the normal plural form of فضلة, and Arabic often uses the plural for things like:

• waste
• droppings
• remains
• residue

So فضلات القطط is a natural way to say cat waste or cats’ droppings, and in context it refers to what you would associate with a litter box.

It is more literal than the English expression litter.

Because the two nouns are doing different jobs.

• القطة = the specific cat being fed
• القطط = part of the phrase فضلات القطط, meaning cats’ waste or cat litter

So the later plural is not necessarily saying that several cats are present in the scene. It is part of a more general category expression, much like English says cat litter as a type of thing.

In other words, the sentence can still be about one particular cat, while the litter-box phrase uses a general expression.

Yes.

The Arabic imperfect tense often covers several English meanings, depending on context, such as:

• feeds
• is feeding
• sometimes even does feed

So this sentence could naturally be understood as either:

• My friend feeds the cat near the litter box
• My friend is feeding the cat near the litter box

Context would decide which English translation is best.