الشباب بلشوا الشغل.

It is built into the verb بلشوا.

In Levantine Arabic, verbs usually already tell you person + number, so بلشوا means they started. Because the sentence also has the explicit subject الشباب, you do not need a separate pronoun.

So:

• بلشوا = they started
• الشباب بلشوا = the guys/young men started

A separate pronoun such as هنّ would only be used for emphasis or contrast.

بلشوا is the past-tense plural form of بلّش, which means to start / to begin in Levantine.

Breakdown:

• بلّش = he started
• بلشوا = they started

The ending ـوا is the marker for they in the past for a masculine or mixed group.

A rough pronunciation is ballashu.

Yes. بلشوا is a past/perfective form, so the sentence describes a completed event: they started.

If you wanted other time frames, you could say for example:

• الشباب بيبلشوا الشغل = the guys start / are starting the work
• الشباب رح يبلشوا الشغل = the guys will start the work

Because subject + verb + object is very common in everyday Levantine Arabic.

So this sentence is:

• الشباب = subject
• بلشوا = verb
• الشغل = object

This order is very natural in speech. Arabic can also use other word orders, but this one is especially common in colloquial Levantine.

Also, in Levantine, full agreement with a plural subject is normal, so بلشوا matches الشباب as plural.

Because الشباب is definite: the guys / the young men / the youth.

Compare:

• شباب = young men / guys / some guys in a more indefinite or generic sense
• الشباب = the guys / the young men

So the sentence is talking about a specific group, not just young people in general.

It can mean all of those, depending on context.

Literally, الشباب is related to youth or young people, but in spoken Levantine it very often works like:

• the guys
• the young men
• sometimes more generally the young people

Grammatically, it is masculine plural, so in many real-life situations it refers mainly to males, unless the context clearly includes a mixed group.

Because both ش letters in الشباب and الشغل are sun letters.

With sun letters, the ل of الـ assimilates to the next consonant. So instead of a clear al-, you hear a doubled sh sound.

So roughly:

• الشباب → ish-shabāb or ash-shabāb
• الشغل → ish-sheghl or similar, depending on region

This is normal Arabic pronunciation, and Levantine often has i-like vowels in the article.

شغل is a very common Levantine word. Depending on context, it can mean:

• work
• the work
• the job
• stuff to do

In this sentence, it most likely means the work or work in the sense of a task or job they began.

So الشغل is a very useful everyday word, broader than just one English translation.

Because Arabic often uses the definite form where English uses a bare noun.

So الشغل may correspond to:

• the work
• work
• the job

depending on context.

In other words, the Arabic definite article does not always map one-to-one onto English the. Here it can simply refer to the relevant work/task already understood in the situation.

Yes, you can.

There is a small nuance:

• بلشوا الشغل = they started the work
• بلشوا بالشغل = they started on the work / got started with the work

Without بـ, الشغل is the direct object of the verb. With بـ, the wording can feel a bit more like starting into the task. In everyday speech, both are possible, and context matters.

Yes. بلّش is very common in Levantine everyday speech and is one of the normal colloquial verbs for start/begin.

In Standard Arabic, the usual equivalent is بدأ.

So a more Standard Arabic version would be something like:

• بدأ الشباب العمل

But in natural spoken Levantine, بلش is exactly the kind of verb people commonly use.