الجيتار بالشنطة.

The guitar is in the bag.

Breakdown of الجيتار بالشنطة.

• شنطة: bag
• جيتار: the guitar

Questions & Answers about الجيتار بالشنطة.

How do I pronounce الجيتار بالشنطة in Levantine Arabic?

A common Levantine pronunciation is el-jitār bish-shanṭa.

A few notes:

• الجيتار = el-jitār
• بالشنطة comes from بـ + ال + شنطة, but because ش is one of the letters that makes the l disappear in pronunciation, you usually hear bish-shanṭa, not bil-shanṭa

Also, ج in many urban Levantine accents sounds like the s in measure or the g in genre, so جيتار may sound closer to zhitār than to English guitar.

Why is there no word for is in this sentence?

Because in Arabic, present-tense sentences like this often do not use a separate word for is/are.

So الجيتار بالشنطة is literally structured like:

• the guitar
• in the bag

But the meaning is understood as the guitar is in the bag.

If you wanted past tense, you would usually add a verb, for example:

• الجيتار كان بالشنطة = the guitar was in the bag

What does بـ mean in بالشنطة?

Here, بـ means something like , depending on context.