الفيل في الصورة.

A common Egyptian pronunciation is el-feel fis-soora.

Breakdown:

• الفيل → el-feel
• في الصورة → often sounds like fis-soora in connected speech

A slightly more careful pronunciation would be closer to el-feel fi s-soora.

A couple of useful sound notes:

• فيل has a long ee sound
• صورة has a long oo sound
• ص is a heavier, more emphatic version of s

Because Arabic usually leaves out the present-tense verb to be.

So الفيل في الصورة literally looks like:

• the elephant
• in the picture

But it means:

• The elephant is in the picture

This is completely normal in Arabic. If you wanted past or future, then Arabic would usually use a verb such as كان for was.

ال is the Arabic definite article, meaning the.

So:

• فيل = an elephant / elephant
• الفيل = the elephant
• صورة = a picture / picture
• الصورة = the picture

In this sentence, both nouns are definite:

• the elephant
• the picture

Because ص is a sun letter.

When ال comes before a sun letter, the l sound of ال is not pronounced. Instead, the next consonant is doubled.

So:

• written: الصورة
• pronounced in Egyptian: es-soora or, after في, often just s-soora as part of fis-soora

This is why learners often hear:

• في الصورة → fis-soora

Even though the spelling still keeps ال.

في usually means in, inside, or sometimes at, depending on context.

Here it marks location:

• في الصورة = in the picture

So it is functioning like a normal preposition before a noun phrase.

This is a very normal Arabic sentence pattern: noun + prepositional phrase.

It starts with الفيل as the topic, and then gives information about where it is:

• الفيل = the elephant
• في الصورة = in the picture

So the structure is basically:

• The elephant — in the picture
• natural English: The elephant is in the picture

This is different from a sentence meaning There is an elephant in the picture, which would usually be expressed differently.

In Egyptian Arabic, a very common way is:

فيه فيل في الصورة

That means There is an elephant in the picture.

Compare:

• الفيل في الصورة = The elephant is in the picture
  
  • talking about a specific elephant
• فيه فيل في الصورة = There is an elephant in the picture
  
  • introducing the existence of an elephant

So the sentence you were given is more definite and specific.

It works in both.

The writing is the same, and the structure is natural in both:

• الفيل في الصورة

The main difference is pronunciation:

• in Egyptian Arabic: el-feel fis-soora
• in Modern Standard Arabic: al-fiil fii aṣ-ṣuura
  or, with full case endings in very formal reading, al-fiilu fii aṣ-ṣuura

So an Egyptian speaker would absolutely understand and use this sentence, but pronounce it in the Egyptian way.

The final ة is called taa marbuuTa.

In a word like صورة, it usually sounds like -a when you say the word by itself or at the end of a phrase:

• صورة → soora

That is why learners hear soora, not soorat, in this sentence.

It also often marks a feminine noun, so صورة is grammatically feminine.

Not for everyday Egyptian Arabic.

In normal Egyptian speech, you would just say:

• el-feel fis-soora

Case endings belong to formal Modern Standard Arabic, and they are usually not pronounced in everyday Egyptian conversation.

So for speaking Egyptian, the important things to learn here are:

• the definite article ال
• the preposition في
• the sun-letter pronunciation in الصورة
• the missing present-tense is