امي كانت عم تشوف عنوان المحل بالايميل لما فتحت الباب.

Because امي means my mother, and that is feminine singular.

In Levantine, the past of كان agrees with gender:

• كان = he was
• كانت = she was

So امي كانت = my mother was.

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

Breakdown:

• كانت = she was
• عم = marks an action as ongoing/in progress
• تشوف = she sees / is seeing / is looking

So كانت عم تشوف means she was looking, she was checking, or she was seeing, depending on context.

It is the Levantine equivalent of English was + -ing.

عم is an aspect marker. It shows that the action is in progress.

Compare:

• بتشوف = she sees / she looks / she watches
• عم تشوف = she is looking / she is watching
• كانت عم تشوف = she was looking / she was watching

So عم is one of the key markers for ongoing action in Levantine.

Because the subject is feminine singular: امي.

In the present/imperfect conjugation, she often takes تـ:

• يشوف = he sees
• تشوف = she sees

So after كانت عم, you get تشوف for she was looking.

A useful thing to know: تشوف can also look like the you form in writing, but the subject here is clearly امي, so it means she looks / was looking.

Good question. In Levantine, after عم, many speakers use the bare imperfect:

• عم تشوف

But in some regional varieties, people also say:

• عم بتشوف

So both patterns exist, depending on dialect and speaking style. The sentence you have uses the very common pattern عم + imperfect without بـ.

شاف / يشوف is a broad verb in Levantine. Depending on context, it can mean:

• see
• look at
• watch
• check
• take a look at

In this sentence, with عنوان المحل and بالايميل, it most naturally means something like:

• looking at
• checking

So she was probably checking the shop’s address in the email.

This is an iḍāfa structure, often called a construct phrase.

• عنوان = address
• المحل = the shop / the store

Together:

• عنوان المحل = the address of the shop / the shop’s address

Arabic usually does not need a separate word like English of in this kind of structure.

A few similar examples:

• باب البيت = the door of the house / the house door
• اسم البنت = the girl’s name

محل in Levantine often means:

• shop
• store
• business
• sometimes place, depending on context

In this sentence, المحل most likely means the shop or the store.

So عنوان المحل is the shop’s address.

بالايميل is:

• بـ = in / by / with
• الـ = the
• ايميل = email

So literally it is something like in the email.

In natural English, depending on context, you might translate it as:

• in the email
• on the email
• by email

Here it most likely means that the address was written in the email.

Also, ايميل is a borrowed word, so spelling can vary:

• ايميل
• إيميل

Both are common in informal writing.

لما here means when.

It introduces the time clause:

• لما فتحت الباب = when ... opened the door

In sentences like this, لما often sets up the moment when another action happened.

So the structure is basically:

• She was doing X when Y happened

Because this sentence uses a very common storytelling pattern:

• كانت عم تشوف... = background action in progress
• لما فتحت الباب = a completed event that happened during that action

This is just like English:

• My mother was looking at the shop’s address in the email when ... opened the door

So:

• past continuous = ongoing background
• simple past = shorter event that happens at that time

In unvowelled Arabic writing, فتحت can be ambiguous.

Depending on context, it could represent:

• I opened
• she opened

In actual speech, pronunciation helps:

• fataḥt = I opened
• fataḥet = she opened in many Levantine pronunciations

But in normal Arabic script, both are often written the same way: فتحت.

So you usually know from:

• the context
• the translation already provided
• or an added pronoun, such as أنا or هي, if the speaker wants to be extra clear

Yes, in more careful spelling, you may see أمي.

But in informal Levantine writing, people very often drop the hamza and write:

• امي

Both are common in everyday writing. This is especially normal in chats, texts, and informal dialect writing.

Also, in Levantine pronunciation, أمي is often pronounced closer to immi than to the more formal ummī.