لقيت المحفظة في الشنطة السودا.

A common Levantine pronunciation is:

lʔeet il-maḥfaẓa fi sh-shanṭa s-sōda

A few notes:

• ق in لقيت is often pronounced as a glottal stop ʔ in many urban Levantine accents.
• ال before ش and س assimilates, so:
  • الشنطة sounds like sh-shanṭa
  • السودا sounds like s-sōda
• Pronunciation varies a bit by region, so you may also hear slightly different vowels.

لقيت means found in the past tense.

In this sentence, it is the verb: found.

The subject is built into the verb, so Arabic does not need a separate word for I or you here unless you want emphasis.

Yes. In many Levantine varieties, لقيت can mean:

• I found
• you found (masculine singular)

Context usually tells you which one is meant.

If you want to make it clear, you can add a pronoun:

• أنا لقيت = I found
• إنتَ لقيت = you found (to a man)

For you found addressed to a woman, you would usually hear لقيتي.

Because that is a very normal Arabic sentence pattern.

Arabic often allows a verb-first structure:

• لقيت المحفظة... = Found the wallet... / I found the wallet...

In English, you must say I found the wallet.
In Levantine Arabic, the subject can be understood from the verb itself.

You could also add أنا for emphasis:

• أنا لقيت المحفظة = I found the wallet

Because ال means the.

So:

• المحفظة = the wallet
• الشنطة = the bag

Without ال, they would be indefinite:

• محفظة = a wallet
• شنطة = a bag

They refer to two different things:

• محفظة = wallet
• شنطة = bag

This is useful because English can sometimes be confusing with words like purse, which may mean different things in different dialects of English.

In this Arabic sentence:

• المحفظة is the smaller item you keep money/cards in
• الشنطة is the larger bag it was inside

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

So:

• الشنطة السودا = the black bag

Literally, the order is:

• the bag the-black

That is normal Arabic word order for noun + adjective.

Because in Arabic, an adjective agrees with the noun in definiteness.

So:

• الشنطة السودا = the black bag

Both words are definite.

This is an important contrast:

• الشنطة السودا = the black bag
• الشنطة سودا = the bag is black

So when the adjective is part of the noun phrase, it also takes ال.

Because شنطة is a feminine singular noun, so the adjective must also be feminine singular.

• masculine: أسود = black
• feminine in Levantine: سودا

So:

• شنطة سودا = a black bag
• الشنطة السودا = the black bag

As for سوداء: that is the more formal/Standard Arabic form. In everyday Levantine, people commonly say and write سودا.

في means in.

So:

• في الشنطة السودا = in the black bag

It shows location, just like English in.

Because ش and س are sun letters, and the ل of ال assimilates to them.

So:

• الشنطة is pronounced ash-/ish-/sh-shanṭa rather than al-shanṭa
• السودا is pronounced as-/is-/s-sōda rather than al-sōda

This happens in both Standard Arabic and Levantine Arabic.

It is clearly colloquial Levantine.

Clues include:

• السودا instead of the more formal السوداء
• the everyday word شنطة
• no case endings

A more Standard Arabic version would be something like: وجدتُ المحفظةَ في الحقيبةِ السوداءِ

But in everyday Levantine, لقيت المحفظة في الشنطة السودا sounds natural.

Because this is normal everyday Arabic writing.

Two things are happening:

• Short vowels are usually not written in Arabic
• Colloquial Levantine does not use the full case-ending system of Standard Arabic in speech

So learners usually see:

• لقيت المحفظة في الشنطة السودا

not a fully vowelled formal version.

That is completely normal for real-life Levantine Arabic.