system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
How would you explain the rows of a Linear Transformation matrix to a 5-year-old?

I am not good at math.

I'm trying to understand linear transformations intuitively.  So far I understand that the columns of the matrix are the transformations of the standard basis vectors, and I understand why that's the case algebraically.

What I'm struggling to understand is how to interpret the rows of a linear transformation matrix.  What does each row *mean*?  Why do you take the dot product of each row with an input vector?

Is there any way to explain this without referencing the columns of a linear transformation?
gpt
A five year old is not going to understand linear algebra lol, stop wasting your time, you'd be torturing them.  

If this is a serious question, keep it 2D you'd have to draw some triangles and circles and squares and show them what they looked like sheared and rotated and mirror imaged and expanded.  Everything 2x2 matrix be decomposed in terms of those.