السواق قال لي: المحل قريب من البنك.

In Egyptian Arabic, the present-tense verb to be is usually not said.

So المحل قريب من البنك is literally something like:

• the shop near from the bank

but it naturally means:

• The shop is near the bank

This is completely normal in Arabic. If you wanted was, you would use كان. For example:

• المحل كان قريب من البنك = The shop was near the bank

Literally:

• قال = he said
• لي = to me

So قال لي literally means he said to me.

In English, we often translate this more naturally as he told me, especially when the sentence goes on to give the message itself. So both ideas are close here.

In Egyptian speech, this is a very common way to introduce what someone said.

Because قريب normally takes the preposition من when you say something is near another thing.

So:

• قريب من البنك = near the bank

This is just the standard pattern, like:

• بعيد من or more commonly بعيد عن = far from
• قريب من البيت = near the house

Even though من often means from, after قريب it simply helps express nearness.

In Egyptian Arabic, السواق is commonly pronounced roughly es-sawwāʔ or is-sawwāʔ.

Two useful pronunciation points:

• The ال in السواق is written the normal way, but because س is a sun letter, the l sound of ال is absorbed. So you hear es-s..., not al-s...
• The final ق in many Egyptian accents, especially Cairene, is pronounced as a glottal stop ʔ, not as q

So a learner may hear something like es-sawwāʔ.

السواق is very Egyptian and very common in everyday speech.

The formal MSA equivalent is:

• السائق

So:

• السواق = everyday Egyptian Arabic
• السائق = formal / MSA

If you are learning spoken Egyptian, السواق is exactly the kind of word native speakers use naturally.

In Egyptian Arabic, محل usually means a shop, store, or business place.

It is one of the most common everyday words for a shop. Depending on context, it can refer to anything from a small corner shop to a regular storefront business.

So in this sentence, المحل is just the place the speaker is trying to find.

Because ال makes a noun definite.

So:

• المحل = the shop
• البنك = the bank

That usually means the speaker has a specific shop and a specific bank in mind, or both are already understood from context.

If you removed ال, you would get:

• محل = a shop
• بنك = a bank

But for giving directions, the definite form is very natural.

Because المحل is grammatically masculine singular, so the adjective matches it:

• المحل قريب = the shop is near

If the noun were feminine, you would usually use قريبة instead. For example:

• الصيدلية قريبة من البنك = The pharmacy is near the bank

So this is normal adjective agreement.

The colon shows that the words after it are the actual message the driver said.

So the structure is:

• The driver said to me:
  The shop is near the bank.

In spoken Arabic, you would just pause after قال لي. In writing, the colon is a modern punctuation choice to make the direct speech clear.

You could also express this as indirect speech, for example with إن:

• السواق قال لي إن المحل قريب من البنك

That would mean something like The driver told me that the shop is near the bank.