ساعديني في المطبخ، ثم ضعي الزيت والملح قرب القدر.

Because both command forms are feminine singular:

• ساعديني
• ضعي

In Arabic, the imperative changes depending on who you are speaking to. Here, the forms show the speaker is addressing one female.

Compare:

• to a man: ساعدني / ضع
• to a woman: ساعديني / ضعي

So the verb itself tells you the gender and number of the person being addressed.

That ending is made of two parts:

• ساعدي = help! when speaking to one woman
• ني = me

So:

• ساعدي + ني = ساعديني

In other words, ساعديني literally breaks down as help + me, with the feminine singular command ending built in.

This is because وضع is a verb whose initial و drops in certain forms, including the present tense and the imperative.

You get:

• past: وضع
• present: يضع
• imperative to a man: ضع
• imperative to a woman: ضعي

So ضعي is the normal imperative form from وضع. This is a common pattern with some verbs beginning with و.

Arabic usually does not need an explicit subject pronoun in commands. The verb form already tells you who the command is for.

So instead of saying:

• أنتِ ساعديني
• أنتِ ضعي

Arabic normally just says:

• ساعديني
• ضعي

You could add أنتِ for emphasis, but it is not necessary.

في المطبخ is a prepositional phrase meaning in the kitchen.

• في = in
• المطبخ = the kitchen

It tells you the location of the action: the helping is to happen in the kitchen.

ثم means then or after that. It shows sequence: first do one thing, and afterward do the next thing.

So the sentence gives two steps:

1. ساعديني في المطبخ
2. ثم ضعي الزيت والملح قرب القدر

Compared with و, which can simply mean and, ثم more clearly marks an order in time. It often sounds more like and then rather than just and.

Because both nouns are definite here:

• الزيت = the oil
• الملح = the salt

In Arabic, when two coordinated nouns are both definite, each one normally takes its own الـ.

So Arabic says:

• الزيت والملح

not usually:

• الزيت وملح

Also, Arabic often uses the definite article with familiar household items or ingredients when the speaker means the specific oil and salt relevant in the situation.

It works like near or close to, but grammatically it is often treated as a noun used adverbially (a ظرف مكان, or expression of place).

So:

• قرب القدر = near the pot

This is a very normal Arabic structure. You can think of it as a compact way to say location.

A longer alternative would be:

• بالقرب من القدر = near the pot

Both are correct, but قرب القدر is shorter and very natural.

Here, القدر means the pot or the cooking pot.

This word can be confusing because the spelling قدر can also refer to other words in Arabic, such as fate/destiny, depending on pronunciation and context.

In this sentence, because the setting is the kitchen and the sentence mentions oil and salt, القدر clearly means the pot.

In normal Arabic writing, short vowels and most case endings are usually not written, so learners have to know them from grammar.

If you fully vocalized the sentence, parts of it would be read approximately like this:

• في المطبخِ because في makes the noun genitive
• الزيتَ والملحَ because they are the objects of ضعي
• قربَ القدرِ because قرب functions as an adverbial expression, and القدر after it is genitive

So even though the written sentence does not show those endings, the grammar is still there underneath.

Yes. All of these can work:

• قرب القدر
• بالقرب من القدر
• بجانب القدر

They all express the idea of being near the pot, though there can be slight differences in style:

• قرب القدر = short and direct
• بالقرب من القدر = a bit more explicit
• بجانب القدر = beside / next to the pot

So قرب القدر is not the only option; it is just a concise natural one.

The given order is natural, but Arabic word order is somewhat flexible.

For example, في المطبخ could sometimes be moved for emphasis, but the original sentence sounds straightforward and idiomatic for instructions:

• ساعديني في المطبخ، ثم ضعي الزيت والملح قرب القدر.

In commands, Arabic often prefers a clear step-by-step order, and that is exactly what this sentence does.