زميلة من الشغل قالت لي ان الاجتماع اتاخر.

Because the coworker is female.

• زميلة = a female colleague / coworker
• قالت = she said

If the coworker were male, you would usually say:

• زميل من الشغل قال لي...

So the noun and the past-tense verb both show feminine gender here.

Literally, it means from the work, but in natural English it means from work or at work.

So:

• زميلة من الشغل = a colleague from work / a coworker

In Egyptian Arabic, الشغل is a very common everyday word for work, job, workplace. It is more colloquial than العمل.

Arabic usually does not use a separate word for a/an.

• زميلة = a female colleague
• الزميلة = the female colleague

So the absence of الـ makes the noun indefinite. That is how Arabic often expresses a/an.

لي means to me.

So:

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

The verb قال often uses لـ with the person hearing the speech:

• قال لي = he said to me
• قالت لي = she said to me
• قال لهم = he said to them

This is very natural Arabic structure.

Here, ان means that and introduces the reported statement.

So:

• قالت لي ان الاجتماع اتاخر
• She told me that the meeting was delayed / got late

In informal Egyptian writing, ان is a very common spelling. You may also see more formal spellings in other contexts, but for a learner, the key idea is:

• قال لي ان... = he told me that...

Literally, it is something like:

• the meeting got late

In natural English, that usually becomes:

• the meeting was delayed
• the meeting started late
• sometimes the meeting got pushed back

The exact English translation depends on context. It does not always mean a full postponement to another day; often it just means it was later than expected.

Not really.

In Egyptian Arabic, اتأخر / اتاخر often works like became late or got delayed. So the meeting itself is described as undergoing a change.

That is why English may translate it with passive-like wording:

• the meeting was delayed

But in Arabic, the structure is not the same as an English passive. It is more like:

• the meeting got late / got delayed

Both are possible.

• الاجتماع اتاخر
• اتاخر الاجتماع

In Egyptian Arabic, starting with the noun is very common in everyday speech, especially when that noun is already the topic.

So الاجتماع اتاخر feels a bit like:

• the meeting — it got delayed

while اتاخر الاجتماع is more straightforwardly verb-first:

• the meeting got delayed

The meaning is basically the same.

A broad pronunciation would be:

zamiila men ish-shoghl 'aalet li in il-igtimaa' it'akhkhar

A few useful notes:

• زميلة → zamiila / zameela
• الشغل is commonly pronounced ish-shoghl or esh-shoghl
• قالت لي often runs together in speech: 'aaletli
• الاجتماع in Egyptian is often il-igtimaa'
• اتاخر / اتأخر is usually pronounced it'akhkhar

Pronunciation varies a bit by speaker, but that is a good practical guide.

Because informal Egyptian writing often simplifies spelling.

• اتأخر is a fuller spelling that shows the hamza more clearly.
• اتاخر is a casual spelling you will often see in texts and chats.

They represent the same everyday Egyptian verb here.

The same kind of thing happens with ان, which is often written simply in informal contexts even when more formal spelling conventions would write it differently.