الشاكوش بيكسر الجبس.

The hammer is breaking up the plaster.

Breakdown of الشاكوش بيكسر الجبس.

• الشاكوش: the hammer
• الجبس: the plaster
• يكسر: to break up

Questions & Answers about الشاكوش بيكسر الجبس.

How do I pronounce الشاكوش بيكسر الجبس?

A natural Egyptian pronunciation is:

ish-shakūsh biyiksar il-gibs

You may also see it written in transliteration as:

esh-shakoosh biyiksar el-gibs

A few pronunciation notes:

• ش = sh
• ج in Egyptian Arabic is usually a hard g
• بيكسر is roughly bi-yik-sar
• الجبس sounds like il-gibs / el-gibs

So the whole sentence does not sound like each Arabic letter is pronounced separately in a slow, careful way.

Why is الشاكوش pronounced more like ish-shakūsh and not il-shakūsh?

Because ش is a sun letter.

In Arabic, when the definite article الـ comes before a sun letter, the l sound of الـ assimilates to the next consonant.

So:

• ال + شاكوش
• becomes pronounced ish-shakūsh / esh-shakoosh

You still write ال, but you pronounce a doubled sh sound.

By contrast, الجبس keeps the l sound, because ج is not a sun letter in pronunciation here.

What does mean grammatically?