انا بفهم عربي اكتر من انجليزي.

A common Levantine pronunciation is:

ana بفهم عربي أكتر من إنجليزي
or in transliteration: ana بفham ʿarabi aktar min الإنجليزي / inglīzi

A smoother full transliteration would be:

ana بفham ʿarabi aktar min inglīzi

A few notes:

• انا = ana = I
• بفهم = bfham = I understand
• عربي = ʿarabi = Arabic
• اكتر = aktar / akter = more
• من = min = than
• انجليزي = inglīzi = English

Depending on the country or speaker, you may hear small pronunciation differences, especially in اكتر and انجليزي.

In Levantine Arabic, the prefix بـ often marks the normal present tense or habitual action.

So:

• بفهم = I understand / I do understand
• In Modern Standard Arabic, you would expect أفهم

This is one of the most noticeable differences between Levantine and Standard Arabic:

• MSA: أنا أفهم العربية أكثر من الإنجليزية
• Levantine: أنا بفهم عربي اكتر من انجليزي

So the بـ is very normal in spoken Levantine.

The بـ marks the everyday present tense in many Levantine varieties.

So:

• بفهم = I understand
• بتفهم = you understand
• بيفهم = he understands
• بتفهم = she understands

It often gives the sense of a regular, ongoing, or general present meaning.

Without getting too technical, this is the form you will usually hear in conversation for simple present meanings.

Yes, it can often be left out.

Arabic verbs already show the subject, so:

• أنا بفهم عربي اكتر من انجليزي
• بفهم عربي اكتر من انجليزي

Both can mean I understand Arabic more than English.

Including أنا can add clarity, emphasis, or contrast. For example, if you want to stress I in particular, keeping أنا makes sense.

In spoken Levantine, language names are often said in a shorter colloquial form:

• عربي = Arabic
• انجليزي = English
• فرنسي = French

In Modern Standard Arabic, you would more often hear:

• العربية
• الإنجليزية

So:

• Levantine: بحكي عربي
• MSA: أتحدث العربية

Both are correct in their own context. The sentence you were given is clearly colloquial Levantine.

Because in this sentence it is the colloquial spoken form, not the formal Standard Arabic noun العربية.

In Levantine everyday speech, people often use the shorter adjective-like form for language names:

• عربي
• انجليزي
• إسباني
• تركي

This is very natural in speech. It is not a mistake; it is just how colloquial Arabic commonly works.

Yes. اكتر من means more than, and it is the normal colloquial way to make a comparison.

Examples:

• بحب القهوة اكتر من الشاي = I like coffee more than tea
• هو اطول مني can also mean He is taller than me, but with adjectives there are other comparative patterns too

In your sentence:

• عربي اكتر من انجليزي = Arabic more than English
• Natural English: Arabic more than English / Arabic better than English, depending on context

Because من is the word that does the job of than in Arabic comparisons.

So:

• اكتر من = more than
• literally: more from/than

This is completely normal Arabic structure. English uses a separate word than, while Arabic uses من.

بفهم specifically means I understand.

It does not literally mean I speak.

That said, in everyday conversation, people sometimes use understanding as a loose way to talk about language ability. But if you specifically want to say I speak Arabic better than English, you would more naturally say something like:

• بحكي عربي اكتر من انجليزي or
• بحكي عربي أحسن من انجليزي

So this sentence is most literally about understanding, not speaking.

In this kind of colloquial usage, it functions as the name of the language: English.

So although forms like عربي and انجليزي are historically adjective-shaped, in everyday Levantine they are very commonly used as language names:

• بعرف عربي = I know Arabic
• بحكي انجليزي = I speak English

So for a learner, the easiest way to understand them here is simply as the names of languages.

Actually, this sentence is fairly close to English word order:

• انا = I
• بفهم = understand
• عربي = Arabic
• اكتر من = more than
• انجليزي = English

So it is basically: I understand Arabic more than English

Arabic can have different word orders depending on style and context, but this particular sentence is not very different from English.

It is definitely colloquial and fits Levantine speech well, especially because of:

• بفهم
• عربي / انجليزي as short spoken language names
• اكتر for more

Speakers from other Arab regions would probably understand it, especially because the vocabulary is common. But they might say it a bit differently in their own dialect.

For example, in Modern Standard Arabic, it would be more like:

• أنا أفهم العربية أكثر من الإنجليزية

In colloquial Levantine, that would usually sound less natural if you simply mean the languages in general.

More natural spoken Levantine:

• أنا بفهم عربي اكتر من انجليزي

Using الـ here may sound more formal, more literal, or less idiomatic in everyday speech. For language names in colloquial speech, the article is often dropped.

Yes:

• اكتر is the common colloquial Levantine form
• أكثر is the Standard Arabic form

So:

• Levantine: اكتر
• MSA: أكثر

Both mean more, but اكتر is what you are more likely to hear in everyday conversation in the Levant.

Yes, depending on context, people may understand it more broadly as a comparison of language ability.

Literally, though, it says:

• I understand Arabic more than English

If you want to be more explicit about skill or ability, you could choose a different verb:

• بحكي عربي أحسن من انجليزي = I speak Arabic better than English
• لغتي العربية أحسن من الإنجليزي = My Arabic is better than my English
  (though phrasing may vary in natural speech)

So the sentence you have is specifically about understanding, but context can widen the meaning a little.

بفهم can be broken down like this:

• بـ = present-tense marker in Levantine
• فهم = the root idea of understanding
• together: بفهم = I understand

The I meaning is built into the verb form itself, which is why أنا is optional.

This is one reason Arabic verbs carry a lot of information in a small form.

You would simply reverse the two language words:

انا بفهم انجليزي اكتر من عربي

That means: I understand English more than Arabic

So the pattern is:

انا + verb + language 1 + اكتر من + language 2