لو كنت مكانك، كنت هاقرا نشرة الدوا.

Because مكانك literally means your place, so the whole expression is literally if I was in your place.

A useful thing to know is that كنت is written the same way for:

• I was
• you were (masculine)
• you were (feminine)

In normal unvoweled Arabic writing, context tells you which one is meant. Here, because of مكانك (your place), the intended meaning is clearly if I were you.

So:

• لو كنت مكانك = if I were in your place = if I were you

لو introduces a hypothetical or unreal condition, like if in English.

In this sentence, it sets up a situation that is not actually true right now, but is being imagined:

• لو كنت مكانك = if I were you

This is the same kind of idea as English If I were you, ..., not a simple real-world condition like If it rains, ...

The two كنت forms do two different jobs:

• لو كنت مكانك = if I were you
• كنت هاقرا = I would read

So the first كنت is part of the if clause, and the second كنت helps build the result clause meaning would.

In Egyptian Arabic, a structure like كنت + future/present form can express something like:

• would do
• was going to do

Here, because it comes after لو and is clearly hypothetical, كنت هاقرا means I would read.

Not really, even though كنت by itself is a past form.

In this structure, كنت هاقرا does not usually mean simple past. In a sentence with لو, it gives a conditional meaning:

• كنت هاقرا = I would read

So you should understand it as a whole expression, not word-by-word as I was will-read.

In other contexts, كنت + future/present can sometimes mean was going to, but here the conditional meaning would read is the natural one.

هاقرا is a colloquial Egyptian future form meaning I will read.

It is made of:

• ها- = future marker
• اقرا = read / I read

So:

• هاقرا = I will read

In this sentence, because it comes after كنت in a hypothetical structure, the overall meaning becomes I would read.

You may also see similar spellings such as:

• حاقرا
• هقرا
• حأقرا

These are different ways people write colloquial Egyptian informally.

In Cairo-style Egyptian, it is roughly pronounced ha’ra.

That little break in the middle is a glottal stop, because ق in many Egyptian pronunciations is pronounced like a glottal stop rather than a hard q sound.

So:

• هاقرا ≈ ha’ra

Also, the final ا in اقرا reflects the common Egyptian pronunciation of the verb, where the word ends in an a-like sound.

Literally, it is something like the medicine leaflet or the medicine pamphlet.

Word by word:

• نشرة = leaflet, bulletin, pamphlet
• الدوا = the medicine

So نشرة الدوا is the paper that comes with medicine and explains:

• dosage
• warnings
• side effects
• instructions

In English, a very natural translation would be:

• the medicine leaflet
• the medication insert
• the package insert

Because this is Egyptian colloquial, not Modern Standard Arabic.

In MSA, the word is:

• دواء

In Egyptian Arabic, it is commonly said and written informally as:

• دوا

So:

• الدواء = the medicine (MSA)
• الدوا = the medicine (Egyptian colloquial)

This kind of simplified spelling is very common in dialect writing.

It is clearly Egyptian colloquial.

Signs of that include:

• هاقرا instead of a formal future form
• الدوا instead of الدواء
• the overall colloquial style

A more formal MSA version would be something like:

• لو كنتُ مكانك، لقرأتُ نشرةَ الدواء.

That is much more formal and bookish. The original sentence sounds like everyday spoken Egyptian.

Yes, you can, and it is common in speech.

For example:

• لو أنا مكانك، هاقرا نشرة الدوا
• أنا لو مكانك، هاقرا نشرة الدوا

These also mean If I were you, I’d read the medicine leaflet.

But لو كنت مكانك، كنت هاقرا... sounds especially natural as a fully built hypothetical sentence. It feels a bit more explicitly structured, like If I were you, I would...

As written, it could be either, because colloquial Arabic is often written without vowel markings, and some forms look identical in writing.

Here:

• مكانك can address either a man or a woman in unvoweled writing
• كنت also looks the same in writing

In actual pronunciation, there may be a difference depending on the full sentence and the speaker’s pronunciation, but in everyday informal writing, this sentence can easily be read as gender-neutral from context.

Yes, in colloquial speech you may hear shorter versions, such as:

• لو كنت مكانك، هاقرا نشرة الدوا
• أنا لو مكانك، هاقرا نشرة الدوا

These are very natural too.

But keeping كنت in كنت هاقرا makes the would meaning more explicit and gives the sentence a stronger counterfactual feel:

• If I were you, I would read...

So the version with two instances of كنت is not redundant; it is a natural way to express this idea in Egyptian Arabic.