قبل ما انام، حطيت التلفون جنب السرير، والمخدة كانت تحت البطانية.

In Levantine, قبل ما + verb is the normal colloquial pattern for before [someone] does/did something.

So:

قبل ما انام = before I sleep / before I go to sleep / before I went to sleep

Here, ما is not a negation. It is just part of this time expression in spoken Arabic. A more formal Standard Arabic version would be قبل أن أنام, but in everyday Levantine, قبل ما أنام is much more natural.

Because after قبل ما, Levantine usually uses the bare imperfect verb, without the بـ prefix.

So you say:

قبل ما انام

not usually:

قبل ما بنام

The بـ prefix often marks the regular present/habitual in Levantine, but after words like قبل ما, you normally drop it.

That is very normal in Arabic.

After قبل ما, Arabic often uses the imperfect form even when the whole situation is in the past. So structurally, it looks like before I sleep, but in context it can mean:

before I went to sleep
or
before going to sleep

Since the main verb حطيت is past, the listener naturally understands the time as past.

حطيت means I put or I placed.

It is the past tense, first person singular form of حطّ / يحطّ = to put.

So:

• حطّيت = I put
• حطّ = he put
• حطّت = she put

In everyday Levantine, حطّ is a very common verb for putting/placing something somewhere.

Because dialect writing is usually informal.

A more phonetic/learner-friendly spelling would be:

حطّيت

with a shadda on طّ.

But in casual texting or informal writing, many people leave out shadda and hamza marks, so حطيت is completely normal. The same thing happens with انام, which could also be written أنام.

جنب means beside, next to, or at the side of.

So:

جنب السرير = next to the bed

Literally, جنب comes from the idea of a side, so the phrase is very close to at the side of the bed. In everyday Levantine, it works like a preposition.

The و simply means and.

So the sentence is linking two pieces of information:

• حطيت التلفون جنب السرير
• والمخدة كانت تحت البطانية

In natural English, this is:

I put the phone next to the bed, and the pillow was under the blanket.

Because المخدة is treated as feminine.

In Arabic, the past form of to be agrees with the subject:

• كان = was with a masculine subject
• كانت = was with a feminine subject

So:

المخدة كانت تحت البطانية = The pillow was under the blanket

If the subject were masculine, you would use كان instead.

You can say المخدة تحت البطانية in the present, and it means:

The pillow is under the blanket

But in the past, Arabic needs كان/كانت:

المخدة كانت تحت البطانية = The pillow was under the blanket

So كانت is there because the sentence is describing a past state or location.

It describes a state or location, not an action.

So it means:

the pillow was under the blanket

It does not mean:

the pillow went under the blanket

If you wanted to express the action of putting it there, you would say something like:

حطيت المخدة تحت البطانية = I put the pillow under the blanket

Yes. مخدة is a very common Levantine word for pillow.

In Standard Arabic, learners often meet وسادة, but in everyday Levantine, مخدة is much more common.

So this is a good example of how spoken Arabic often uses different everyday vocabulary from Standard Arabic.

Because the speaker is talking about specific things:

• the phone
• the bed
• the pillow
• the blanket

In this sentence, these are not just any phone or any bed; they are understood, specific objects in the situation. So the definite article الـ is natural.

Both are possible.

التلفون can mean the phone, and many speakers use it naturally. But الموبايل is also extremely common, especially when you specifically mean a cellphone/mobile phone.

So depending on the speaker, region, and situation, you might hear either:

• التلفون
• الموبايل

Both sound normal in everyday Levantine.

A natural casual pronunciation could be something like:

'abl ma naam, ḥaṭṭeet it-tilifon janb is-sriir, wil-mkhadde kaanit taḥt il-baṭṭaaniyye

A few useful notes:

• قبل is often pronounced closer to 'abl
• حطيت sounds like ḥaṭṭeet
• التلفون often sounds like it-tilifon
• السرير often sounds like is-sriir

That happens because the الـ article often assimilates in pronunciation before certain consonants in natural speech.