هي ردت عليا وقالت لي ان الفستان حلو.

Yes — ردت already tells you the subject is she, because the -ت ending marks a feminine singular subject in the past tense.

So technically, هي is not required for basic grammar. The sentence could simply be:

ردت عليا وقالت لي ان الفستان حلو

Adding هي does one of these things:

• makes the subject extra clear
• adds emphasis
• sounds more natural in some conversational contexts, especially if you are contrasting her with someone else

So هي here is optional but perfectly normal.

ردت is the Egyptian Arabic past-tense form of to reply / to answer / to respond for a feminine singular subject.

Breakdown:

• رد = reply / answer
• ردت = she replied

In this sentence, it means something like:

• she replied to me
• she answered me
• she got back to me

The exact English wording depends on context.

In Egyptian Arabic, the past tense often takes endings that show who did the action.

For the verb رد:

• ردّيت = I replied
• ردّيت/رديت = you replied
• رد = he replied
• ردت = she replied

So the -ت here marks she in the past tense.

This is very common in Arabic verbs, and learners often notice that the subject is built into the verb itself.

عليا here means to me in the expression رد على.

The verb رد often goes with على when it means reply to someone:

• رد عليا = he/she replied to me
• رد عليك = replied to you
• رد عليه = replied to him
• رد عليها = replied to her

So in this sentence:

• ردت عليا = she replied to me

A key point: with رد, Egyptian Arabic commonly uses على, not لـ, for the person receiving the reply.

In careful writing, you may sometimes see عليّ for on me / to me in Standard Arabic contexts, but in Egyptian Arabic texting and informal writing, عليا is extremely common as a way to represent the pronunciation.

In Egyptian speech, this is often pronounced something like:

• ʿalayya
• sometimes closer to ʿaleyya

So عليا is a very normal colloquial spelling.

In other words:

• عليّ is more formal / standard-oriented spelling
• عليا is very common in Egyptian informal writing

Great question. The reason is that different verbs take different prepositions or structures.

With رد

Arabic usually says:

• رد على حد = reply to someone

So:

• ردت عليا = she replied to me

With قال

Arabic usually says:

• قال لحد = say to someone

So:

• قالت لي = she said to me

Even though both can translate as to me in English, Arabic does not use the same structure with every verb.

So this sentence is using the normal patterns:

• ردت عليا
• قالت لي

و means and.

So:

• قالت = she said
• وقالت = and she said

The sentence is chaining two actions:

1. هي ردت عليا = she replied to me
2. وقالت لي... = and said to me...

This kind of linking with و is extremely common in spoken Arabic.

Because لي tells you who she said it to.

• قالت = she said
• قالت لي = she said to me

Arabic often includes this indirect object explicitly when needed. In English, we sometimes say either:

• she said to me
• she told me
• sometimes just she said

But Arabic is being more specific here.

ان here means that.

So:

• قالت لي ان الفستان حلو = she told me / said to me that the dress is nice

It introduces the content of what she said.

In Egyptian Arabic, this is often pronounced like:

• إن
• sometimes إنّ depending on the speaker and style

In informal writing, people may write it as:

• ان
• إن

All of these are common enough in context.

No, not always.

In Egyptian Arabic, speakers may include ان or leave it out, depending on style, rhythm, and context.

So both of these can be natural:

• قالت لي ان الفستان حلو
• قالت لي الفستان حلو

The version with ان makes the clause boundary clearer and often sounds a bit more explicitly like she said that...

Because فستان is grammatically masculine.

In Arabic, adjectives usually agree with the noun in gender:

• masculine noun → masculine adjective
• feminine noun → feminine adjective

So:

• فستان = dress, but grammatically masculine
• حلو = nice / pretty / sweet, masculine form

If the noun were feminine, you would expect حلوة.

This is one of those places where grammatical gender does not match what an English speaker might expect from meaning.

Literally, حلو can mean sweet, but in everyday Egyptian Arabic it is also used very broadly to mean:

• nice
• pretty
• beautiful
• good-looking
• lovely

So الفستان حلو means something like:

• the dress is nice
• the dress is pretty
• the dress looks good

This is a very common adjective in spoken Egyptian Arabic.

Because in Arabic, present-tense sentences like the dress is nice usually do not need an explicit verb to be.

So:

• الفستان حلو literally looks like the dress nice
• but it means the dress is nice

This is completely normal in Arabic.

If the sentence were in the past, then Arabic would use a verb:

• الفستان كان حلو = the dress was nice

So the missing is is not missing at all — Arabic simply does not say it in this kind of present-tense sentence.

Yes, it is normal.

The sentence is:

• هي = she
• ردت عليا = replied to me
• وقالت لي = and said to me
• ان الفستان حلو = that the dress is nice

So the structure is roughly:

Subject + Verb + Object/Complement + and + Verb + Object + clause

Egyptian Arabic often uses straightforward conversational word order like this. Because Arabic verbs already show the subject, the pronoun هي is optional, but when included it gives you a clear she right at the start.

A natural transliteration would be:

heyya raddet ʿalayya wi-ʾaalet li inn il-fustaan 7elw

You may also see variations like:

• hiyya instead of heyya
• we or wi for و
• al-fostan / il-fustaan / el-fostan
• helw / 7elw

That variation is normal because Egyptian Arabic is often transliterated in many different ways.

It is clearly Egyptian Arabic in flavor.

A few clues:

• عليا is a colloquial Egyptian-style spelling/pronunciation
• حلو is very common colloquial speech
• the overall phrasing sounds conversational

A more Standard Arabic version would likely look different, for example in spelling and word choice.

So this sentence is best understood as natural spoken Egyptian Arabic written informally.

Yes. Depending on context, ردت عليا can mean:

• she replied to me
• she answered me
• she responded to me
• she got back to me

For example:

• if you sent her a message, it may mean she replied
• if you had been waiting a while, it may feel more like she got back to me

So the Arabic is broad enough to fit several natural English translations.