الولاعة جنب الفحم.

In Levantine Arabic, the present-tense verb to be is usually omitted.

So الولاعة جنب الفحم is literally:

• the lighter
• next to the charcoal

But it naturally means The lighter is next to the charcoal.

This is a very common Arabic sentence pattern, called a nominal sentence.

جنب means next to, beside, or by.

In this sentence, it gives the location of the lighter:

• الولاعة = the lighter
• جنب الفحم = next to the charcoal

You can think of جنب here as functioning like a preposition in English.

الـ is the Arabic definite article, equivalent to the in English.

So:

• ولاعة = a lighter
• الولاعة = the lighter

and

• فحم = charcoal
• الفحم = the charcoal

In this sentence, both nouns are definite, so both take الـ.

In Levantine, الـ is usually pronounced il- or sometimes just a very light l- in fast speech.

So this sentence is commonly pronounced something like:

il-wallāʿa janb il-faḥem

Because و and ف are moon letters, the l sound in الـ stays pronounced:

• il-wal...
• il-fa...

It does not assimilate here.

A helpful approximation is:

il-wallāʿa

A few pronunciation notes:

• و here gives a w sound.
• The doubled consonant feeling in the middle comes from the spelling pattern, so it sounds like wal-lā...
• ع is the Arabic letter ʿayn, a sound that does not exist in English. Learners often approximate it at first, and that is normal.
• The final ة is pronounced as a short ending, often like -a or -e depending on the speaker and region.

So you may hear slightly different local pronunciations.

A good approximation is:

il-faḥem

Important detail:

• ح is a strong, breathy h sound made deeper in the throat than English h.

So faḥem is not the same as a normal English fah-em. The ḥ is stronger.

In Levantine, this word is often pronounced more like faḥem than the more formal Standard Arabic faḥm.

Yes. ولاعة is grammatically feminine, which you can often guess from the ending ة.

That matters when you add adjectives or use past-tense verbs with it.

For example:

• الولاعة جديدة = The lighter is new

Here جديدة is feminine to match ولاعة.

Because فحم / الفحم is usually treated as a mass noun, like charcoal in English.

So Arabic commonly uses the singular form to talk about the substance in general:

• الفحم = the charcoal

If you specifically meant separate pieces or coals, the wording might change, but in a normal sentence like this, الفحم is completely natural.

Yes. This is a very normal order:

• thing being talked about
• location

So:

• الولاعة = the lighter
• جنب الفحم = next to the charcoal

This is the most straightforward way to say The lighter is next to the charcoal.

Yes, but جنب is a very natural everyday choice.

Depending on the dialect and situation, you might also hear expressions like:

• حدّ = next to / by
• بجانب = beside, next to, but this sounds more formal

For everyday Levantine, جنب is simple and common, so it is a good word to learn first.

Yes, it could.

Compare:

• الولاعة جنب الفحم = The lighter is next to the charcoal
• ولاعة جنب الفحم = A lighter is next to the charcoal
• الولاعة جنب فحم = The lighter is next to charcoal
• ولاعة جنب فحم = A lighter is next to charcoal

So الـ directly affects whether the noun is definite or indefinite.

It is a simple nominal sentence in Levantine Arabic.

Its structure is:

• subject/topic: الولاعة
• predicate/location phrase: جنب الفحم

So the sentence is built without a present-tense verb, which is one of the most important basic patterns in Arabic.