Learn Russian: Мы поели дома.

In Russian, past tense verbs are usually formed by adding an -л near the end of the word. Here, we see the past tense stem поел-, which tells us the action already happened.

Why does поели end in -и?

In the past tense, verbs must match the subject in gender and number. Because мы (we) is plural, we add the plural ending -и to the past tense stem (поел), making it поели. If it were 'he ate,' it would be он поел with no extra ending.

The word for 'house' is дом. Why are we using дома here?

дома is a fixed adverb that means 'at home'. While it comes from the noun дом (house), you use дома all by itself to say where you are, without needing a separate preposition like 'at' or 'in'.

What does the по- at the beginning of поели do?

You might recognize the core verb ели (ate). Adding the prefix по- at the beginning tells us that the action is completely finished. Мы поели carries the feeling of 'We finished eating' or 'We had our meal.'