Breakdown of في الصيدلية قرأت الموظفة الوصفة، ثم قالت إن الدواء جاهز.
يقرأ
to read
في
at/in
ثم
then
الدواء
medicine
Questions & Answers about في الصيدلية قرأت الموظفة الوصفة، ثم قالت إن الدواء جاهز.
Why does the sentence begin with في الصيدلية instead of starting with the verb?
Arabic often allows adverbial phrases like في الصيدلية (in the pharmacy) to come first for context or emphasis.
So:
- في الصيدلية قرأت الموظفة الوصفة = In the pharmacy, the employee read the prescription
Starting with في الصيدلية sets the scene first. This is very natural in Arabic. English can do something similar with fronting: At the pharmacy, the employee read the prescription.
If the sentence began with the verb, قرأت الموظفة الوصفة, it would still be correct; it just would not foreground the location in the same way.
Why is the verb قرأت feminine?
Because the subject الموظفة (the female employee) is feminine.
In the past tense, Arabic verbs agree with the subject in gender. The form قرأت is she read.
Compare:
- قرأ الموظف = the male employee read
- قرأت الموظفة = the female employee read
The ـت at the end is part of the past-tense feminine singular verb form.
How do we know الموظفة is the subject and الوصفة is the object?
In this sentence, the verb comes first:
- قرأت = read
- = the one doing the action