احنا مرات بنطلب اكل من المطعم لما بنكون تعبانين.

احنا means we in everyday Egyptian Arabic.

It is the colloquial equivalent of Standard Arabic نحن. In normal Egyptian speech, people usually say احنا, not نحن. So this sentence sounds natural for spoken Egyptian.

Literally, مرات is the plural of مرة, which means time/occasion. So مرات originally means times.

In colloquial Arabic, it often works like at times in English, so it naturally comes to mean sometimes.

In Egyptian, you may also hear ساعات for sometimes. Both are common in speech.

Yes. The verb طلب is connected to asking for or requesting.

So بنطلب literally means we ask for / we request, but in the context of food it is best translated as we order.

So:

• بنطلب أكل = we order food
• بنطلب قهوة = we order coffee

There are really two parts here:

• نـ marks we
• بـ marks the present/habitual form in Egyptian Arabic

So:

• بنطلب = we order / we usually order
• بنكون = we are / we tend to be

This بـ is very common in Egyptian spoken Arabic for present-time or habitual actions.

Yes, the spelling can look ambiguous.

In informal Arabic writing, people often leave out the hamza, so اكل may be written instead of أكل.

Depending on context, أكل / اكل can mean:

• food as a noun
• he ate as a verb

Here, because it comes after بنطلب, it is clearly a noun:

• بنطلب اكل = we order food

So context tells you how to read it.

Because اكل here means food in a general, indefinite sense.

So بنطلب اكل is like saying we order food in English, not we order the food.

If you said الأكل, it would sound more specific, like the food or the meal/food in question.

Literally, من المطعم means from the restaurant.

But in colloquial Arabic, the definite article is often used in places where English might use a more general expression. So من المطعم can sound natural even when the meaning is simply restaurant food or food from a restaurant.

If you wanted to stress from a restaurant, you could also say من مطعم, but من المطعم is a very natural colloquial phrasing.

Here, لما means when.

It introduces the time clause:

• لما بنكون تعبانين = when we are tired

So the sentence structure is:

• main idea: احنا مرات بنطلب اكل من المطعم
• time condition: لما بنكون تعبانين

That is a very good question.

In Arabic, you often can say:

• احنا تعبانين = we are tired

with no separate word for are.

But after لما, using بنكون makes the meaning more explicitly when we are / when we happen to be tired.

So:

• لما تعبانين would sound incomplete or unnatural here
• لما بنكون تعبانين sounds clear and natural

In very colloquial Egyptian, many speakers might also say لما نبقى تعبانين, which is also very natural.

Because the subject is احنا = we, so the adjective has to match a plural subject.

• تعبان = tired, masculine singular
• تعبانة = tired, feminine singular
• تعبانين = tired, plural

So:

• أنا تعبان = I am tired
• أنا تعبانة = I am tired
• احنا تعبانين = we are tired

In everyday Egyptian, تعبانين is the normal plural form for a mixed group or an unspecified group, and it is also very commonly used in speech more generally.

The word order is somewhat flexible.

The sentence as given is very natural:

• احنا مرات بنطلب اكل من المطعم لما بنكون تعبانين

But you could also hear things like:

• مرات احنا بنطلب اكل من المطعم...
• احنا بنطلب اكل من المطعم مرات...

The exact position of مرات can change, but putting it early in the sentence is very common and makes the sometimes idea clear right away.

A rough pronunciation would be:

eḥna marrāt benṭlob akl men el-maṭʿam lamma benkūn taʿbānīn

A few important sounds:

• ح in احنا: a stronger, breathier h than English h
• ط in بنطلب and المطعم: a heavier, deeper t
• ع in المطعم and تعبانين: a throat sound that has no exact English equivalent
• لما has a doubled m sound, so it is more like lam-ma

If those sounds are difficult at first, that is completely normal. Even an approximate pronunciation will usually still be understood.