الفستان قصير.

A learner-friendly pronunciation is roughly el-fostān qaṣīr.

A few useful notes:

• ال is usually pronounced el- or il- in Egyptian, not al-.
• فستان is often heard as fostān in everyday speech.
• In many Egyptian accents, ق is pronounced as a glottal stop, so قصير may sound less like qaṣīr and more like it starts with a brief throat stop.

So if you say something close to el-fostān qaṣīr, people will understand you well.

Because Arabic normally leaves out the verb to be in the present tense.

So:

• الفستان قصير literally looks like the dress short
• but it means the dress is short

This is completely normal in Arabic. If you want past or future, then you usually add a verb:

• الفستان كان قصير = The dress was short
• الفستان هيبقى قصير = The dress will be short

Because Arabic normally puts adjectives after the noun, unlike English.

Compare:

• English: short dress
• Arabic: فستان قصير

The same basic order appears here in a full sentence:

• الفستان قصير = The dress is short

So for an English speaker, the word order often feels reversed at first.

They are not the same.

• الفستان قصير = The dress is short
  This is a full sentence.

• الفستان القصير = the short dress
  This is just a noun phrase, not a complete sentence by itself.

Why? Because in الفستان قصير, قصير is the predicate of the sentence, so it does not take ال.

But in الفستان القصير, القصير is a regular adjective describing الفستان, so it matches it in definiteness.

This is a very important distinction in Arabic.

Because ف is a moon letter, so the l in ال stays pronounced.

That is why you say:

• el-fostān

not:

• ef-fostān

If the noun began with a sun letter, the l would merge into the next sound. For example:

• الشمس is pronounced esh-shams

But with فستان, the l is clearly pronounced.

Because قصير agrees with الفستان, and فستان is grammatically masculine singular.

In Arabic, adjectives must agree with the noun in:

• gender
• number
• definiteness (when they are regular attributive adjectives)

So here:

• فستان = masculine singular
• قصير = masculine singular

If the noun were feminine, you would usually use قصيرة instead. For example:

• التنورة قصيرة = The skirt is short

Yes. In Arabic, grammatical gender does not always match real-world associations.

So even though a dress is typically women's clothing, the word فستان is grammatically masculine. That is why the sentence uses:

• قصير

not:

• قصيرة

This is something you just learn with the noun, the same way learners memorize whether a French or German noun is masculine or feminine.

It works in both.

In everyday Egyptian Arabic, you can absolutely say:

• الفستان قصير

In fully vocalized Modern Standard Arabic, it would be:

• الفستانُ قصيرٌ

The main differences are:

• Egyptian usually drops case endings
• Egyptian pronunciation is different in some sounds, especially ال and often ق

So this sentence is a nice example of something that is simple and understandable in both varieties.

Because in Egyptian Arabic, case endings are not used in normal speech.

So you simply say:

• الفستان قصير

In formal Modern Standard Arabic, with full grammar endings, it would be:

• الفستانُ قصيرٌ

But in Egyptian, those final -u / -un endings are dropped. For learners of Egyptian, the version without endings is the one to focus on.

You would usually say:

• الفستان مش قصير

Here مش means not in Egyptian Arabic.

So:

• الفستان قصير = The dress is short
• الفستان مش قصير = The dress is not short

In everyday Egyptian, مش is the normal and useful negation word to learn for sentences like this.