بعد العشاء تضع امي الطبق في المطبخ.

Because Arabic allows time expressions to come first for emphasis or natural flow.

So:

• بعد العشاء = after dinner
• تضع أمي الطبق في المطبخ = my mother puts the dish/plate in the kitchen

Starting with بعد العشاء is very natural and means something like:

• After dinner, my mother puts the plate in the kitchen.

Arabic word order is more flexible than English. A time phrase like بعد العشاء can easily be placed at the beginning.

بعد means after, but grammatically it behaves like a noun in Arabic, not exactly like an English preposition.

In بعد العشاء:

• بعد = after
• العشاء = the dinner / dinner

This is an iḍāfa construction (a possessive-type structure), literally something like:

• the after of dinner

That is why العشاء comes directly after بعد.

If full case endings were written, it would be:

• بَعْدَ العَشاءِ

Here, العشاءِ is in the genitive because it is the second part of the iḍāfa.

Because the subject is feminine:

• أمي = my mother

The verb must match that, so Arabic uses the 3rd person singular feminine form:

• تضع = she puts

Compare:

• يضع = he puts
• تضع = she puts

So تضع أمي means my mother puts.

This is a very common Arabic sentence pattern: verb + subject + object.

So:

• تضع = puts
• أمي = my mother
• الطبق = the plate/dish

This word order is perfectly normal in Modern Standard Arabic.

Arabic can also use subject + verb:

• أمي تضع الطبق في المطبخ

That is also correct, but it may feel slightly different in emphasis. The version with the verb first is very standard and common in MSA narrative or neutral statements.

In standard spelling, it should be written:

• أمي

The initial أ includes a hamza.

However, in casual typing, many people omit hamzas and write:

• امي

So:

• أمي = standard spelling
• امي = common informal simplification

For a learner of MSA, it is better to learn and write the standard form:

• أمي

The basic word is:

• أم = mother

To say my mother, Arabic adds the suffix:

• ـي = my

So:

• أم + ي = أمي
• أمي = my mother

This is a very common pattern in Arabic:

• كتاب = book
• كتابي = my book

So أمي is simply mother + my.

الـ is the Arabic definite article, meaning the.

So:

• طبق = a plate / a dish
• الطبق = the plate / the dish

and:

• مطبخ = a kitchen
• المطبخ = the kitchen

In your sentence:

• الطبق = the plate/dish
• المطبخ = the kitchen

So Arabic is being definite here, just like English would be if the meaning is the plate and the kitchen.

It can mean either, depending on context.

Common meanings of طبق include:

• plate
• dish
• sometimes even course or layer in other contexts

In this sentence, plate is probably the most natural everyday meaning, but dish is also possible depending on the intended translation.

So a learner should understand that the exact English word may vary with context.

في means in.

So:

• في المطبخ = in the kitchen

This is a simple prepositional phrase:

• في = in
• المطبخ = the kitchen

If full case endings were shown, it would be:

• في المطبخِ

because nouns after a preposition are genitive in Arabic.

Because normal Arabic writing usually leaves them out.

So the sentence is written as:

• بعد العشاء تضع أمي الطبق في المطبخ

But if fully vowelled, it would be approximately:

• بَعْدَ العَشَاءِ تَضَعُ أُمِّي الطَّبَقَ فِي المَطْبَخِ

These endings show grammar, such as:

• تضعُ = verb ending
• الطبقَ = object in the accusative
• المطبخِ = after the preposition في, so genitive

Learners often wonder where these endings are; the answer is that they are usually understood from context and not written in everyday texts.

If we show the full grammatical roles:

• بعدَ = adverbial/time expression
• العشاءِ = genitive, because it is the second part of an iḍāfa after بعد
• تضعُ = verb
• أمي = subject
• الطبقَ = direct object, so accusative
• في المطبخِ = prepositional phrase; المطبخِ is genitive after في

So the sentence structure is roughly:

time phrase + verb + subject + object + place phrase

It can mean more than one thing depending on context.

Common meanings include:

• dinner / supper
• nightfall / evening
• in religious contexts, the ʿIshāʾ prayer

In your sentence, because of the everyday context with my mother, the plate, and the kitchen, the natural meaning is dinner.

Yes, something like that may appear, but في المطبخ is clearer and more standard for learners.

• في المطبخ = in the kitchen
• بالمطبخ literally uses بـ, which can have several meanings depending on context and dialectal usage

In MSA, في المطبخ is the safest and most straightforward choice for in the kitchen.

A careful pronunciation would be roughly:

• baʿda al-ʿashāʾi taḍaʿu ummī aṭ-ṭabaqa fī al-maṭbakhi

A few useful notes:

• ع in العشاء is a consonant that does not exist in English.
• ض in تضع is an emphatic consonant.
• In الطبق, the ل of ال is not pronounced normally, because ط is a sun letter. So it sounds like aṭ-ṭabaq, not al-ṭabaq.

That last point is very common in Arabic pronunciation.

Because ط is one of the sun letters.

When الـ comes before a sun letter, the l sound is assimilated into the next consonant. So:

• الطبق is pronounced aṭ-ṭabaq

But it is still written with ال.

This happens with words beginning with letters like:

• ت، ث، د، ذ، ر، ز، س، ش، ص، ض، ط، ظ، ل، ن

Since ط is one of them, the pronunciation changes even though the spelling does not.

Yes. That is also grammatically correct.

Arabic often allows several word orders, especially with time and place expressions. For example, all of these can work:

• بعد العشاء تضع أمي الطبق في المطبخ
• أمي تضع الطبق في المطبخ بعد العشاء
• تضع أمي الطبق في المطبخ بعد العشاء

The differences are mainly about emphasis and style, not basic meaning.

Your original sentence is natural and correct.