אם היית גרה בכפר, היית רוצה גינה או רק מרפסת קטנה?

Because the sentence uses feminine singular forms.

The clearest clues are:

• גרה = feminine singular living
• קטנה = feminine singular small

Also, רוצה is understood here as feminine singular wants / would want, although without vowel marks its spelling is the same as the masculine form.

So the sentence is speaking to you (singular, female). If it were addressed to a man, it would begin אם היית גר בכפר...

Hebrew often drops subject pronouns when the verb already shows who the subject is.

So instead of saying אם את היית גרה... for if you were living..., Hebrew normally just says:

• אם היית גרה...

The pronoun את could be added for emphasis, but it is not necessary.

Because both parts of the sentence are part of a hypothetical / conditional idea.

• אם היית גרה בכפר = if you lived in a village
• היית רוצה גינה... = would you want a garden...

Hebrew often uses a form of היה plus another verb form to express what English does with would in this kind of sentence.

That is just how Hebrew commonly builds this type of hypothetical sentence.

Grammatically, היית גרה is made from:

• היית = you were
• גרה = living

But in context, the whole phrase means something like:

• if you lived
• if you were living
• if you happened to live

In natural English, if you lived in a village is the best translation.

Usually that would mean something more like if/when you lived in a village in the past — referring to a real past situation.

By contrast, אם היית גרה בכפר is the natural way to talk about a hypothetical situation now or in general:

• If you lived in a village...

So for this sentence, היית גרה is the right choice.

It is the preposition ב־ (in) attached to כפר (village):

• ב + כפר = בכפר

So it means in a village or sometimes in the village, depending on context.

In this sentence, the meaning is general, so English usually says:

• in a village
• or more loosely in the countryside

This is a very common Hebrew spelling issue.

Without vowel marks, רוצה can represent both:

• masculine singular: rotse
• feminine singular: rotza

You know it is feminine here because the rest of the sentence is feminine:

• גרה
• קטנה

So the reader understands that רוצה here is the feminine pronunciation and meaning.

Because in Hebrew, adjectives normally come after the noun they describe.

So:

• מרפסת = balcony
• קטנה = small

Together:

• מרפסת קטנה = a small balcony

Also, the adjective has to agree with the noun in gender and number. Since מרפסת is feminine singular, the adjective is also feminine singular: קטנה.

רק means only or just.

Here it limits the second option:

• או רק מרפסת קטנה = or just a small balcony

Its position shows that the speaker means:

• not a garden
• only a small balcony

So רק is emphasizing that the balcony option is the more modest one.

Hebrew does not usually have a single standalone word that works exactly like English would in every case.

Instead, Hebrew expresses that idea through verb patterns and context. In this sentence, the sense of would comes from:

• היית גרה = hypothetical lived
• היית רוצה = would want

So English uses would, but Hebrew often uses forms built with היה instead.

The masculine version would be:

אם היית גר בכפר, היית רוצה גינה או רק מרפסת קטנה?

Main changes:

• גרה → גר
• רוצה stays the same in spelling, but would be pronounced rotse instead of rotza
• קטנה stays קטנה because it describes מרפסת, and מרפסת is feminine no matter who you are talking to

So not every word changes — only the ones that agree with you.