الشباب بدأوا الشغل.

Because ش is a sun letter. In Arabic, when الـ comes before a sun letter, the l sound gets absorbed into the next consonant.

So:

• الشباب is pronounced roughly esh-shabāb
• الشغل is pronounced roughly esh-shoghl

You still write الـ, but you do not pronounce the l here.

A rough pronunciation is:

esh-shabāb badaʔu esh-shoghl

A few notes:

• ش = sh
• ء in بدأوا is a glottal stop, like a small break in the voice: bada-ʔu
• غ in الشغل is a deep throaty sound, often compared loosely to the French or Parisian r

If that final cluster in شغل feels hard, try saying it slowly as sho-ghl.

الشباب literally means the youth or young people, but in everyday Egyptian Arabic it can also feel like:

• the guys
• the young men
• the young people

It does not refer to just one person. The singular is شاب = a young man.

Depending on context, الشباب can be a fairly broad everyday word, not just something formal like the youth in English.

Not always. In many real contexts, الشباب often refers to a group of young men, but it can also be used more loosely for young people in general.

A learner should pay attention to context:

• in some situations, it clearly means young men / the guys
• in others, it can be more general

So it is not automatically as narrow as English boys.

بدأوا is the past tense, 3rd person masculine plural form of بدأ = to begin / to start.

So:

• بدأ = he started
• بدأوا = they started

The ending ـوا is the key plural marker here.

Because the subject is a group of people, the verb appears in a plural they form.

Because Arabic verbs already include the subject.

So بدأوا by itself already means they started.

The word الشباب is added because it tells you who the they are:

• بدأوا = they started
• الشباب بدأوا = the young people started

This is very normal in Arabic.

In Egyptian Arabic, subject + verb + object is very common and natural, so الشباب بدأوا الشغل sounds very normal.

That means the sentence is structured a lot like English:

• الشباب = subject
• بدأوا = verb
• الشغل = object

You may also meet verb-first patterns in Arabic, especially in formal Arabic, but for spoken Egyptian this subject-first order is extremely common.

الشغل is a very common Egyptian Arabic word meaning:

• work
• the job
• the task
• business/work stuff

It is broader and more everyday than a very strict English word-for-word translation might suggest.

In Egyptian Arabic, شغل is one of the most common words for work.

Because it is talking about specific work or the work rather than just some work in a vague sense.

So:

• شغل = work / a job / some work
• الشغل = the work / the job

In this sentence, the speaker is referring to a known piece of work or job, so الـ is natural.

Yes, you may hear expressions like that, but بدأوا الشغل is a very straightforward and natural way to say they started the work.

The version without في is direct:

• بدأوا الشغل = they started the work

With في, the phrasing can feel a bit more like:

• they started on the work
• they began getting into the work

So the core meaning is similar, but the direct-object version in your sentence is simple and very common.

It is written in normal Arabic script, and much of it is understandable across varieties, but it feels more natural for Egyptian / colloquial usage because of الشغل.

A more formal MSA-style version would often use:

• بدأ الشباب العمل

So:

• الشغل feels very everyday and Egyptian
• العمل feels more formal / Standard Arabic

The spelling of the verb بدأوا itself is standard Arabic spelling, even if the sentence is being used to teach Egyptian Arabic.

Not exactly.

• الشغل = work, job, work stuff, tasks
• وظيفة = a job or position, often in the sense of employment or a post

So in this sentence, الشغل is broader and more natural. It is not limited to the idea of a formal job title.