اتخطبوا قبل ما يتجوزوا.

Because the verb endings already show the subject.

• اتخطبوا = they got engaged
• يتجوزوا = they get married / they marry in this structure

The ending -وا tells you the subject is they. Arabic often drops subject pronouns when the verb already makes the subject clear.

اتخطبوا means they got engaged.

It comes from the idea of engagement / being engaged, not just someone gave a speech or anything like that. In Egyptian Arabic, اتخطب is the common verb for to get engaged.

So in this sentence, اتخطبوا is a completed action in the past.

This is very normal in Egyptian Arabic.

After قبل ما meaning before, Egyptian Arabic usually uses the imperfect form of the verb:

• قبل ما يتجوزوا = before they got married

So even though English uses a past form, Arabic uses this imperfect-looking verb after قبل ما. You should think of it as the normal grammar after before, not as a literal present tense.

Because after قبل ما, Egyptian Arabic normally uses the bare imperfect, not the بيـ form.

Compare:

• بيتجوزوا = they get married / they are getting married / habitual or ordinary present
• قبل ما يتجوزوا = before they got married / before they marry

So the missing بيـ is not a mistake. It is exactly what you expect after قبل ما.

Here, قبل ما works together as before.

In this sentence, ما does not mean not. It is part of the expression that introduces the following verb clause:

• قبل ما يتجوزوا = before they got married

So it is best to learn قبل ما as a chunk.

Yes, both verbs are plural because the subject is they:

• اتخطبوا
• يتجوزوا

And yes, this can absolutely refer to one couple. In Egyptian Arabic, people commonly use the plural for they when talking about two people together, like a man and a woman who got engaged and later married.

Unlike Standard Arabic, Egyptian Arabic does not regularly use a full dual verb system in everyday speech the same way.

A simple learner-friendly pronunciation is:

et-kha-ta-bu abl ma yet-gaw-we-zu

A more natural Egyptian-style pronunciation may vary a bit by speaker, but this is a good approximation.

A few notes:

• خ sounds like the ch in German Bach or Scottish loch
• ط is a heavier, emphatic t
• ج in Egyptian Arabic is usually pronounced like g in go

Yes. You could also say:

قبل ما يتجوزوا، اتخطبوا.

That means the same thing: Before they got married, they got engaged.

The original order:

اتخطبوا قبل ما يتجوزوا

is very natural and straightforward. Changing the order mostly changes emphasis, not the basic meaning.

Yes, this sentence is clearly colloquial Egyptian Arabic.

A few Egyptian features here are:

• اتخطبوا for they got engaged
• يتجوزوا for they get married / marry
• قبل ما as the everyday colloquial way to say before

In Standard Arabic, the wording would be different. For example, you would expect something more like قبل أن... rather than قبل ما, and تزوجوا rather than اتجوزوا.

So this sentence sounds natural in spoken Egyptian, not formal written Arabic.

Usually, yes.

In Egyptian Arabic, اتخطبوا often refers to an actual engagement period, not just a casual agreement between two people. It usually suggests that the couple became officially engaged in the social or family sense.

Exactly how formal it is depends on context, but it is generally stronger than just they decided to marry someday.

Yes, in natural English that can work too.

Literally, اتخطبوا is more like they got engaged, because it is a past action. But in normal English, They were engaged before they got married often expresses the same real-world idea.

So the Arabic focuses on the event of becoming engaged, while English may sometimes prefer the state were engaged depending on style.