يحتاج المشروع إلى آلاف الدولارات.

Because this is a very common verbal sentence pattern in Arabic: verb + subject + rest.

So:

• يحتاج = the verb
• المشروع = the subject

This word order is very normal in MSA.
You can also say المشروع يحتاج إلى آلاف الدولارات. That is also correct, but it starts with the subject instead of the verb.

يحتاج is the present/imperfect form of the verb احتاج إلى, which means to need.

In this sentence, يحتاج means it needs or needs, and it matches المشروع because المشروع is:

• singular
• masculine

So the verb is in the 3rd person masculine singular form.

A fully vocalized form would be يحتاجُ.

Because the verb احتاج is commonly used with the preposition إلى in Arabic.

So Arabic says, literally:

• needs to / is in need of

That is why you get:

• يحتاج إلى مال
• يحتاج إلى وقت
• يحتاج إلى آلاف الدولارات

This is different from English, where need usually takes a direct object without a preposition.

المشروع is the subject of the verb يحتاج.

So the project is the thing that is doing the needing.

Grammatically, it is nominative. In fully vocalized Arabic, it would be:

• المشروعُ

Even though it comes after the verb, it is still the subject.

آلاف means thousands.

It is the broken plural of ألف, which means thousand.

So:

• ألف = a thousand
• آلاف = thousands

In this sentence, آلاف comes after إلى, so it is in the genitive case:

• إلى آلافِ

Arabic usually does not need a separate word for of here.
Instead, it uses a structure called iḍāfa.

So:

• آلاف الدولارات = thousands of dollars

Literally, it is something like:

• thousands + the dollars

In this structure:

• آلاف is the first part
• الدولارات is the second part

The second noun is put in the genitive.

Because الدولارات is the second part of the iḍāfa structure: آلاف الدولارات.

Also, آلاف itself is already after the preposition إلى, so you get:

• إلى آلافِ الدولاراتِ

So:

• آلافِ is genitive because of إلى
• الدولاراتِ is genitive because it is the second noun in the iḍāfa

This is a good question, because Arabic and English do not always handle definiteness the same way.

In Arabic, quantity expressions like آلاف الدولارات are very common and idiomatic. Even though الدولارات has الـ, the whole phrase is often translated naturally into English as thousands of dollars, not necessarily the thousands of dollars.

So here, it is best to learn آلاف الدولارات as a normal Arabic way to express this kind of quantity.

Yes. دولار is a loanword, and دولارات is a very common plural in Modern Standard Arabic.

So:

• دولار = dollar
• دولارات = dollars

You may also see other number-related patterns in Arabic, especially with exact numbers, but آلاف الدولارات is a very normal and natural phrase.

Yes, absolutely.

Both are correct:

• يحتاج المشروع إلى آلاف الدولارات
• المشروع يحتاج إلى آلاف الدولارات

The difference is mainly one of style and focus:

• يحتاج المشروع... sounds like a typical verbal sentence
• المشروع يحتاج... puts a little more emphasis on the project

Both are standard.

In full vocalization, the sentence is:

يحتاجُ المشروعُ إلى آلافِ الدولاراتِ

A careful pronunciation is approximately:

yaḥtāju al-mashrūʿu ilā ālāfi ad-dūlārāti

A couple of useful notes:

• المشروع is pronounced al-mashrūʿ
• الدولارات is written with الـ, but because د is a sun letter, it is pronounced ad-dūlārāt
• In normal unvocalized writing, the short case vowels are usually not written

So learners usually see:

يحتاج المشروع إلى آلاف الدولارات