الفيلم كان رائع.

A common Levantine-style pronunciation is:

il-film kān rāyeʿ

A few notes:

• الفيلم is usually said as il-film or even l-film in fast speech.
• كان is kān.
• رائع is often pronounced closer to rāyeʿ in everyday speech.

A rough English-friendly version could be:

il-FILM kaan RAA-yehʿ

The last sound in رائع is the letter ع, which does not exist in English, so learners often approximate it at first.

فيلم means movie or film.

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

So:

• فيلم = a movie / movie
• الفيلم = the movie

In Levantine, الـ is often pronounced il- or just l-, so الفيلم is commonly heard as il-film.

كان means was and is the past tense of to be.

So in this sentence:

• الفيلم = the movie
• كان = was
• رائع = wonderful

Together: The movie was wonderful.

This is important because Arabic usually does not use a present-tense is/are in simple sentences, but it does use كان for the past.

Compare:

• الفيلم رائع = The movie is wonderful
• الفيلم كان رائع = The movie was wonderful

Yes, but only if you want the present meaning, not the past.

• الفيلم رائع = The movie is wonderful
• الفيلم كان رائع = The movie was wonderful

So if you remove كان, the meaning changes from past to present.

Because الفيلم is grammatically masculine singular, the adjective normally matches it.

So:

• فيلم is masculine
• therefore the adjective is رائع

If the noun were feminine, the adjective would usually be feminine too. For example:

• القصة كانت رائعة = The story was wonderful

Here:

• قصة is feminine
• so رائع becomes رائعة

It works in both, but it sounds a bit neutral or standard-leaning because of رائع.

In Levantine conversation, people often say things like:

• الفيلم كان حلو
• الفيلم كان كتير حلو
• الفيلم كان ممتاز

These may sound more natural in everyday speech, depending on the situation.

Still, الفيلم كان رائع is perfectly understandable, and many speakers would use it, especially in more careful or formal speech.

This sentence follows a very common order:

noun + كان + adjective

So:

• الفيلم = subject
• كان = was
• رائع = adjective/predicate

This is similar to English:

The movie + was + wonderful

Arabic can sometimes allow different word orders for emphasis, but this is the basic and natural one.

In Arabic, the present-tense to be is usually omitted in simple sentences.

So Arabic says:

• الفيلم رائع

Literally this looks like:

• the movie wonderful

But it means:

• The movie is wonderful

In the past, however, Arabic uses كان:

• الفيلم كان رائع = The movie was wonderful

This is one of the biggest differences from English.

رائع means something like:

• wonderful
• great
• excellent
• fantastic

The exact English translation depends on context.

In Levantine everyday speech, رائع may sound a bit stronger or slightly more formal than حلو. For example:

• حلو = nice / good / pretty
• رائع = wonderful / amazing / great

So رائع is a very positive adjective.

Yes, this word is tricky for many English speakers.

It is written رائع and often pronounced in a simplified Levantine way as rāyeʿ.

Why it feels difficult:

• it contains a hamza sound in careful pronunciation
• it ends with ع, which is unfamiliar to English speakers

If you are just starting out, saying something close to raa-yeʿ is a reasonable first step.

You do not need a perfect ع immediately to be understood.

Yes. In fully vowelled Modern Standard Arabic grammar, كان affects the predicate, so the full formal version would be:

الفيلمُ كان رائعًا

But in normal Arabic writing, short vowel endings are usually not written, so you typically see:

الفيلم كان رائع

In Levantine Arabic, those formal case endings are not used in everyday speech, so the written form you were given is completely normal for a learner to work with.