Exegesis:

ērōta (cf. 4.10) ‘he asked,’ ‘he inquired.’

posous (cf. 6.38) ‘how many?’

Translation:

Loaves may require expansion to ‘loaves of bread.’

They said may be translated as ‘they replied.’

The elliptical elements implied in the reply ‘seven’ may need some expansion in certain languages, e.g. ‘we have seven loaves of bread,’ ‘we have seven loaves’ or simply ‘seven loaves,’ for in a number of languages numerals must always be used with the nouns they modify or with some classifier of the noun class to which such objects belong.

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on the Gospel of Mark. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1961. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .