الكمبيوتر في الشغل بطيء.

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

So الكمبيوتر في الشغل بطيء is literally something like:

• the computer
• at work
• slow

In natural English, we add is, but in Egyptian Arabic you normally do not say it in the present tense.

If you wanted the past, you would use كان:

• الكمبيوتر في الشغل كان بطيء = the computer at work was slow

A simple breakdown is:

• الكمبيوتر = the computer
• في الشغل = at work / at the workplace
• بطيء = slow

Grammatically:

• الكمبيوتر is the topic/subject
• في الشغل gives context or location
• بطيء is the predicate, meaning what is being said about the computer

So the structure is basically:

• The computer
  • at work
    • slow

Because here بطيء is not being used as an adjective directly attached to the noun in the sense of the slow computer. It is the predicate of the sentence: the computer is slow.

Compare:

• الكمبيوتر بطيء = the computer is slow
• الكمبيوتر البطيء = the slow computer

This is an important difference in Arabic:

• predicate adjective: usually no الـ
• attributive adjective after a noun: it matches the noun in definiteness, so it would take الـ

No, not as written.

الكمبيوتر في الشغل بطيء means the computer at work is slow.

If you want the slow computer at work, you would normally say:

• الكمبيوتر البطيء في الشغل

So the original sentence is a full statement, not just a noun phrase.

It most naturally means at work or at the workplace.

Even though في often means in, the whole expression في الشغل is commonly used the way English uses at work.

So this sentence is not necessarily talking about the computer being physically inside some abstract concept of work. It simply gives the setting:

• at work, the computer is slow
• the computer at work is slow

In this sentence, it most naturally gives the context/location: the computer at work is slow.

If you want to make it clearer that you mean the work computer or the computer that belongs to work, Egyptian Arabic often uses expressions like:

• كمبيوتر الشغل = the work computer
• الكمبيوتر بتاع الشغل = the computer for work / the work computer

So:

• الكمبيوتر في الشغل بطيء = the computer at work is slow
• كمبيوتر الشغل بطيء = the work computer is slow

A learner-friendly pronunciation is:

• el-kombyūter

A few notes:

• الـ here is the definite article, like the
• كمبيوتر is a borrowing from computer
• In Egyptian Arabic, this kind of borrowed word is very common and natural

You may also hear slightly different vowel quality depending on the speaker, but el-kombyūter is a good practical pronunciation to aim for.

A helpful pronunciation is:

• ish-shoghl or esh-shoghl

And after في, many learners hear it roughly as:

• fi sh-shoghl

Why the doubled sh sound? Because ش is a sun letter, so the l of الـ is not pronounced separately. Instead, the sh sound is doubled.

So:

• written: الشغل
• pronounced roughly: ish-shoghl / esh-shoghl

A simple pronunciation guide is:

• ba-ṭeeʔ

A few parts of that:

• ṭ is an emphatic t
• ee is a long vowel
• the final ʔ is a glottal stop, a small catch in the throat

So don’t pronounce it like plain English batee. There is a little stop at the end:

• ba-ṭeeʔ

Yes. كمبيوتر is generally treated as masculine singular, so the predicate is also masculine singular:

• الكمبيوتر بطيء = the computer is slow

If the noun were feminine, the adjective would change too. For example:

• الطابعة بطيئة = the printer is slow

So yes, gender agreement matters.

Yes, Arabic has some flexibility, but the nuance can shift a little.

The original:

• الكمبيوتر في الشغل بطيء

is very natural for the computer at work is slow.

You could also say:

• في الشغل الكمبيوتر بطيء = at work, the computer is slow

This puts more emphasis on the setting at work.

If you say:

• الكمبيوتر بطيء في الشغل

that can still be understood, but depending on context it may sound a bit more like the computer is slow at work / during work use, rather than simply identifying which computer you mean.

So the original order is a good, clear choice.

It is very natural in Egyptian Arabic.

A few clues:

• الشغل is a very common Egyptian word for work / job
• the overall structure is very normal in spoken Arabic
• الكمبيوتر is a common borrowed word in Egyptian speech

In more formal Modern Standard Arabic, you might expect vocabulary like العمل in some contexts, but الشغل is exactly the kind of everyday word learners will hear a lot in Egyptian Arabic.