صديقتي كانت بالمكتبة عم تدور على كتاب عربي جديد.

صديقتي breaks down as:

• صديقة = a female friend
• -ي = my

So صديقتي literally means my female friend.

A native English speaker often wonders why there is no separate word for my. In Arabic, possession is very often shown by adding a suffix directly to the noun.

Also note:

• صديق = male friend
• صديقة = female friend

So the -ة helps mark the noun as feminine, and the -ي adds the meaning my.

كانت is the feminine past form of كان (to be / to be in a certain state).

Here it is used to help form a past continuous idea:

• كانت عم تدور = she was looking
• literally something like she was in the process of looking

Because the subject is صديقتي (my female friend), the verb must be feminine, so we use كانت rather than كان.

A quick comparison:

• كان = he was
• كانت = she was

Yes, and together they create the idea of an action in progress in the past.

In Levantine Arabic:

• عم + present/imperfect verb often shows an ongoing action in the present
• كان/كانت + عم + present/imperfect verb often shows an ongoing action in the past

So:

• عم تدور = she is looking / she’s looking
• كانت عم تدور = she was looking

This is one of the most common ways to express the English past continuous in Levantine.

عم is a common Levantine marker for an ongoing action.

So:

• تدور by itself can mean she looks / she is looking / she looks for, depending on context
• عم تدور clearly emphasizes that the action is in progress: she’s looking

With كانت, it becomes:

• كانت عم تدور = she was looking

This is very characteristic of Levantine Arabic and is one of the things that makes the sentence sound dialectal rather than Modern Standard Arabic.

Here تدور means she looks for or she searches for.

In Levantine, يدور على commonly means to look for.

So:

• عم تدور على كتاب = she is looking for a book

Learners sometimes notice that the basic idea of the root can relate to turning or going around, and that helps explain how it developed the meaning search around for. But in this sentence, the natural translation is simply look for.

Because in Levantine Arabic, the verb يدور often takes the preposition على when it means to look for.

So the pattern is:

• يدور على شي = to look for something

Examples:

• عم دور على مفاتيحي = I’m looking for my keys
• كانت عم تدور على كتاب = she was looking for a book

This is similar to how English uses certain verb-preposition combinations that just have to be learned, like look for rather than just look.

بالمكتبة means in the library or at the library, depending on context.

It is made of:

• بـ = in / at
• المكتبة = the library

So:

• بـ + المكتبة → بالمكتبة

This kind of combination is very common in Arabic. The preposition attaches directly to the noun.

Because short prepositions in Arabic often attach directly to the following word in writing.

So:

• بـ
  • المكتبة = بالمكتبة

This is normal Arabic spelling. The same happens with other short prepositions and particles too.

For example:

• بالبيت = in the house
• بالجامعة = at the university
• بالسيارة = by car / in the car

Because in Arabic, adjectives usually come after the noun they describe.

So:

• كتاب = book
• عربي = Arabic
• جديد = new

Together:

• كتاب عربي جديد = a new Arabic book

This is different from English, where adjectives normally come before the noun: new Arabic book.

Arabic order here is:

• noun + adjective + adjective

Yes. In Arabic, adjectives agree with the noun they describe.

Here:

• كتاب is masculine singular and indefinite
• so عربي is masculine singular indefinite
• and جديد is also masculine singular indefinite

That agreement is important.

For example, if the noun were feminine, the adjectives would change too:

• مجلة عربية جديدة = a new Arabic magazine

So learners should pay attention not only to the meaning of adjectives, but also to their form.

Because the phrase is indefinite: a new Arabic book, not the new Arabic book.

In Arabic, indefiniteness is often shown simply by the absence of الـ (the).

So:

• كتاب عربي جديد = a new Arabic book
• الكتاب العربي الجديد = the new Arabic book

Notice that if the noun is definite with الـ, the adjectives also become definite:

• الكتاب = the book
• العربي = Arabic
• الجديد = new

It is clearly Levantine Arabic.

The biggest clues are:

• عم as a progressive marker
• تدور على for look for
• the overall spoken-style structure

In Modern Standard Arabic, a more formal version might use different wording, such as a verb like تبحث عن for she was searching for.

So this sentence sounds natural in everyday Levantine speech, not formal written Arabic.

Sometimes context can make it ambiguous, but usually صديقتي simply means my female friend.

A native English speaker may ask this because English distinguishes strongly between friend and girlfriend, while Arabic can depend more on context.

In many situations:

• صديقتي = my female friend

If someone specifically means a romantic partner, they may use a different expression depending on region and situation.

So unless context suggests romance, the safest reading is my female friend.

A broad pronunciation would be something like:

ṣadīʔtī kānet bil-maktabe ʿam tdawwer ʿa ktāb ʿarabī jdīd

A few helpful notes:

• صديقتي: the ق is often pronounced as a glottal stop in many Levantine varieties
• بالمكتبة often sounds like bil-maktabe
• عم تدور is often pronounced smoothly together in speech
• على in fast Levantine speech is often reduced to عَ before the next word:
  • على كتاب → عَ كتاب

So in natural speech, you may hear something close to:

صديقتي كانت بالمكتبة عم تدور عَ كتاب عربي جديد

You might hear forms without عم, but كانت عم تدور is the clearest and most typically Levantine way to say she was looking as an ongoing action.

Using عم makes the progressive meaning explicit.

So for a learner, the safest pattern is:

• كان/كانت + عم + imperfect verb = was/were doing

Examples:

• كنت عم بدرس = I was studying
• كان عم يحكي = he was talking
• كانت عم تدور = she was looking

The location is بالمكتبة = in/at the library.

In this sentence it comes after كانت:

• صديقتي كانت بالمكتبة عم تدور...

This is very natural in Arabic. You can think of it as setting the scene first:

• My friend was in the library, looking for...

Arabic word order is flexible, but this order sounds very normal and easy to process.

In meaning, the whole phrase is understood as a new Arabic book, and both adjectives describe كتاب.

So:

• كتاب = the noun
• عربي = adjective describing the book
• جديد = another adjective describing the book

It does not normally mean an Arabic new book or a book of new Arabic. The natural interpretation is that the book itself is both Arabic and new.

A useful breakdown is:

• صديقتي = subject
• كانت = past auxiliary / was
• بالمكتبة = location
• عم تدور = ongoing action
• على كتاب عربي جديد = what she was looking for

So the structure is roughly:

Subject + was + location + was doing + object

That is not the only way to analyze it, but it is a very practical way for a learner to understand how the sentence is built.