انا كنت عم استنى تاكسي قدام البيت لما وصل الباص.

In Levantine, أنا is often optional because كنت already shows the subject is I. So:

• كنت عم استنى... = I was waiting...
• أنا كنت عم استنى... = also I was waiting...

Including أنا can add a little emphasis, contrast, or just sound more explicit. In everyday speech, many people would simply say كنت عم استنى تاكسي...

This is a very common Levantine way to express the past progressive.

Breakdown:

• كنت = I was
• عم = marks an ongoing action
• استنى = wait

So كنت عم استنى literally works like I was in the process of waiting, which is why the natural English translation is I was waiting.

عم marks an action as ongoing or in progress. It is one of the main ways Levantine Arabic expresses the progressive idea, like English am/is/are ...-ing or was/were ...-ing depending on context.

So:

• عم استنى = I’m waiting / I’m in the middle of waiting
• كنت عم استنى = I was waiting

Without عم, the meaning would usually be less clearly progressive.

This depends on dialect and speaking style. In Levantine, speakers vary:

• some say عم استنى
• some say عم بستنى

Both can be heard, depending on the region and the speaker. The sentence you have uses عم استنى, which is a normal colloquial way to say it.

So the important thing for a learner is:

• عم gives the progressive meaning
• the exact verb form after it can vary across Levantine varieties

Because in Arabic, استنى commonly takes a direct object.

In English, you say:

• wait for a taxi

But in Levantine Arabic, you normally say:

• استنى تاكسي

So تاكسي is the thing being waited for, without an extra preposition. This is a very common difference between English and Arabic sentence structure.

Because they do not have the same reference in the sentence.

• تاكسي = a taxi, not a specific one
• الباص = the bus, a specific bus that arrived

This matches the English meaning very well:

• I was waiting for a taxi
• when the bus arrived

So the Arabic article use here is doing the same job the English articles do.

قدام means in front of in colloquial Levantine.

So:

• قدام البيت = in front of the house / in front of the home

A few useful notes:

• قدام is very common in spoken Arabic
• in more formal Arabic, you are more likely to see أمام
• البيت can mean both the house and the home, depending on context

In natural English, this phrase could also be understood as outside the house if the situation makes that clear.

Here, لما means when.

It introduces the event that happened during the ongoing action:

• كنت عم استنى تاكسي = the background action
• لما وصل الباص = the event that happened during that time

So the structure is very similar to English:

• I was waiting for a taxi when the bus arrived.

Because the sentence contrasts:

• an ongoing background action
• with a shorter event that happened during it

So:

• كنت عم استنى = an action already in progress
• وصل = a completed event that occurred at that moment

This is exactly the same logic as English:

• I was waiting
• when the bus arrived

This pattern is extremely common in both languages.

Because Arabic often allows both verb-subject and subject-verb order.

So both of these are possible:

• وصل الباص
• الباص وصل

In many Arabic sentences, especially in narration, verb first is very natural. The version in your sentence sounds like a normal storytelling sequence: ...when the bus arrived.

So this is not strange word order in Arabic; it is a common pattern.

Yes. That would also be very natural in Levantine.

• كنت عم استنى تاكسي = I was waiting for a taxi
• كنت ناطر تاكسي = also I was waiting for a taxi

ناطر is an active participle and is widely used in spoken Arabic to describe a state or ongoing situation. In everyday conversation, كنت ناطر تاكسي may sound even more natural in some contexts.

So as a learner, it is useful to know both patterns.

It is a colloquial spoken form, very common in Levantine. In Modern Standard Arabic, learners are more likely to meet انتظر for to wait.

So roughly:

• Levantine spoken Arabic: استنى
• Standard Arabic: انتظر

If you are focusing on Levantine conversation, استنى is absolutely the kind of word you want to learn.