Post pluviam serva scopam capit ad verrendum atrium, quia folia et lutum ante ianuam iacent.

Because post is a preposition that takes the accusative case. So post pluviam means after rain / after the rain.

Latin has no word exactly like English the, so pluviam can mean rain or the rain, depending on context.

Serva is the feminine form meaning female servant, maid, or slave woman. It is nominative singular, which is the case normally used for the subject.

So serva is the one doing the action of capit.

Because scopam is the direct object of capit. The servant is taking the broom, so the broom receives the action.

The dictionary form is scopa; scopam is its accusative singular form.

The basic meaning of capit is takes, seizes, or grabs. In context, English often translates this more naturally as picks up.

Latin often uses a simple verb where English prefers a verb plus a little extra word such as up.

It shows purpose: it tells us what the broom is being taken for. In English, we might say to sweep the courtyard or for sweeping the courtyard.

Latin often expresses purpose with ad plus a gerund or gerundive construction.

Verrendum is the gerundive of verro, meaning to sweep. A gerundive is a verbal adjective, so it must agree with a noun.

Here it agrees with atrium, so it is neuter accusative singular: verrendum atrium.

Latin does not normally use the infinitive after a verb like capit the way English uses to sweep. Instead, Latin often uses a purpose expression.

A very common way is ad + gerund/gerundive. Since atrium is the object of the sweeping, Classical Latin usually prefers the gerundive construction: ad verrendum atrium.

In this construction, atrium is in the accusative because it stands with ad in a purpose phrase. Also, it is the thing being swept.

The form atrium could look the same as nominative because it is a neuter second-declension noun. For many neuter nouns, nominative and accusative singular are identical.

Because folium is a neuter noun. In Latin, neuter plural nominative and accusative often end in -a.

So folia is plural, not singular. It is the plural of folium.

Because the full subject is folia et lutum — leaves and mud. That is a compound subject, so the verb is plural.

Even though lutum by itself is singular, together with folia it makes more than one thing, so iacent is correct.

Iacent means lie, are lying, or are scattered/lying there. It gives a more vivid picture of leaves and mud on the ground.

Sunt would only mean are, which is grammatically possible in some contexts but much less specific.

Because ante is another preposition that takes the accusative case. So ante ianuam means before the door or in front of the door.

The dictionary form is ianua; ianuam is accusative singular.

Quia means because. It introduces a clause giving the reason for the main action.

So the servant takes the broom because the leaves and mud are lying in front of the door.

Latin word order is much more flexible than English word order because the endings show each word’s job. Putting the verb at the end is very common, especially in subordinate clauses.

So quia folia et lutum ante ianuam iacent is a very natural Latin order.

Because Classical Latin has no articles. It does not have separate words matching English the, a, or an.

Whether a noun should be understood as a servant, the servant, a broom, or the broom depends on context.