هذا الطعام أفضل من طعام المستشفى.

this

Breakdown of هذا الطعام أفضل من طعام المستشفى.

• المستشفى: hospital
• طعام: food
• أفضل: better

Questions & Answers about هذا الطعام أفضل من طعام المستشفى.

Why does the sentence start with هذا?

هذا means this and is used to point to a singular masculine noun.

Here it refers to الطعام (the food), which is grammatically masculine, so هذا is the correct demonstrative.

If the noun were feminine, you would usually use هذه instead.

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Why is it هذا الطعام and not just طعام?

هذا الطعام means this food. Adding هذا makes the noun specific.

• طعام = food
• الطعام = the food
• هذا الطعام = this food

Arabic often uses the demonstrative plus a definite noun, so this food is literally this the-food.

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Why is الطعام definite, with الـ?

In Arabic, when you say this food, the noun after this is normally definite.

So:

• هذا الطعام = this food
  not
• هذا طعام in this context

That is a normal pattern in Arabic: demonstrative + definite noun.

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Where is the verb is?