خيمنا بالوادي.

A natural pronunciation is khayyamna bil-wādi.

A few sound notes:

• خ is a rough kh sound, like the ch in German Bach.
• خيّمنا is roughly khay-YAM-na.
• بالوادي is bil-WAA-di. In fast Levantine speech, bi- can get reduced, so you may also hear something closer to bl-wādi.

خيمنا = خيّم + نا

• خيّم = camped / set up camp
• -نا = we

So the whole verb means we camped.

In fuller spelling, you may also see خيّمنا with a shadda, which shows that the ي is doubled in pronunciation.

It is the past tense.

Arabic grammars often call this the perfect form, but for a learner it is enough to think of it as we camped or we set up camp.

Because Arabic verbs already include the subject.

The ending -نا tells you the subject is we, so a separate pronoun is not necessary.

You could add نحنا for emphasis, but normally you do not need it:

• نحنا خيمنا بالوادي = We camped in the valley with extra emphasis on we

In Levantine Arabic, بـ is very commonly used for location, often where English uses in, at, or sometimes on.

So:

• بالوادي = in the valley

You could also hear في الوادي, and that is also understandable, but بـ is very natural in everyday Levantine.

Because short prepositions like بـ attach directly to the following word in Arabic spelling.

So:

• بـ + الوادي becomes بالوادي

This is very common:

• بالبيت = in the house
• بالجامعة = at the university
• بالسوق = at the market

Because و is a moon letter, not a sun letter.

That means the ل of الـ stays pronounced:

• بالوادي = bil-wādi

Compare that with a sun-letter word, where the ل disappears in pronunciation:

• بالشارع is pronounced more like bish-shāriʿ, not bil-shāriʿ

Yes, الوادي literally means the valley.

So the phrase is literally we camped in the valley.

If you wanted in a valley, you would usually drop الـ:

• بوادي = in a valley

Arabic often uses definiteness a bit differently from English, but in this sentence الوادي is definitely a definite noun.

It works in both, with a small spelling note.

• In Standard Arabic, you would often write خيّمنا بالوادي with the shadda.
• In Levantine writing, people often leave out diacritics and shadda, so خيمنا بالوادي is very normal to see.

So the sentence is not strange in either variety, but the everyday Levantine feel comes especially from using بـ naturally for location.

Yes. This word family is very useful:

• خيمة = tent
• خيّم = to camp / set up camp
• مخيّم = camp or refugee camp
• تخييم = camping

So once you know خيمنا, it becomes easier to recognize other camping-related words built from the same root.