À la maison, Marie remplit la gamelle du chiot avec de l’eau et quelques croquettes.

À la maison means at home. It sets the scene before the main action, like saying At home, Marie... in English.

French often puts a place or time phrase at the beginning for context. You could also say:

Marie remplit la gamelle du chiot à la maison...

but starting with À la maison sounds very natural when you want to establish where the action is happening.

French normally keeps accents on capital letters too, so À is just the capital version of à.

That accent matters because:

• à = at / to / in
• a = has (from the verb avoir)

So À la maison means at home, while a la maison would be incorrect.

Remplit is the third-person singular present form of remplir (to fill), because the subject is Marie.

Conjugation in the present:

• je remplis
• tu remplis
• il/elle remplit
• nous remplissons
• vous remplissez
• ils/elles remplissent

So Marie remplit = Marie fills.

The pattern is:

remplir + thing being filled + avec + what you fill it with

So here:

• la gamelle = the thing being filled
• avec de l’eau et quelques croquettes = what goes into it

Literally: Marie fills the puppy’s bowl with water and some kibble.

This is very similar to English fill something with something.

La gamelle here means an animal bowl or feeding bowl.

In other contexts, gamelle can have other meanings, but with du chiot it clearly means the puppy’s food/water bowl. A learner may also see bol in French, but gamelle is more specifically the kind of bowl used for an animal.

Du here is the contraction of de + le.

• le chiot = the puppy
• de le chiot becomes du chiot

So la gamelle du chiot literally means the bowl of the puppy, or more naturally in English, the puppy’s bowl.

This du is not the same as the partitive du in phrases like du pain. Here it is a contraction showing possession or relationship.

French usually uses an article before nouns, even where English often does not.

With an uncountable substance like water, French often uses the partitive article:

• de l’eau = some water

You say avec de l’eau because the exact amount is not specified. It is not a particular water already identified; it is just some water.

Also, it is de l’ because eau begins with a vowel:

• de + l’ + eau

Because water is treated as an uncountable substance. French uses the singular noun with a partitive article:

• de l’eau = some water

That is normal in French. You would only use a plural form in special meanings, such as different kinds of waters, not in an everyday sentence like this.

Quelques means some or a few, and it goes with a plural count noun.

So:

• quelques croquettes = some kibble / a few pieces of kibble

There is no article before croquettes because quelques is already acting as the determiner. French does not say les quelques croquettes here unless it means something more specific like the few pieces of kibble.

Here, croquettes means dry pet food, especially kibble.

The word can also mean croquettes in cooking for people, but the context makes the meaning clear:

• chiot = puppy
• gamelle = pet bowl

So in this sentence, quelques croquettes definitely refers to the puppy’s food.

Yes. French is flexible here. For example:

Marie remplit la gamelle du chiot avec de l’eau et quelques croquettes à la maison.

That is grammatically possible, but À la maison at the beginning is often smoother because it frames the whole scene right away.

So the original order is natural because it goes:

1. place
2. subject
3. verb
4. object
5. details

Yes. Avec is the usual word for with, and after remplir, it introduces what you use to fill something.

So:

• remplir un verre avec de l’eau = fill a glass with water
• remplir la gamelle avec des croquettes = fill the bowl with kibble

This matches English very closely.