لما في برد، بلبس جاكيت.

Here لما means when or whenever.

In this sentence, it introduces a repeated situation:

• لما في برد = when/whenever it’s cold
• بلبس جاكيت = I wear a jacket

So the whole sentence has a habitual meaning: this is what I do in that situation.

Because Levantine Arabic often expresses weather with في + a noun.

So:

• في برد literally = there is cold
• natural English = it’s cold

Arabic does not need a dummy subject like English it in it’s cold.

A very common alternative is:

• الجو بارد = the weather is cold

Both are natural, but في برد sounds very everyday and colloquial.

في here means there is / there are.

So:

• في برد = there is cold
• في شوب = it’s hot / literally there is heat

This use of في is extremely common in Levantine for existence and for weather-like conditions.

Here برد is a noun, meaning cold or cold weather.

That is why في برد is literally there is cold.

Compare:

• برد = cold (noun)
• بارد = cold (adjective, masculine)

So:

• في برد = it’s cold
• الجو بارد = the weather is cold

English uses cold for both noun and adjective, but Arabic separates them.

The بـ is the regular Levantine marker for the present/habitual tense.

So:

• بلبس = I wear / I put on / I usually wear

In this sentence, because the meaning is a general habit, بلبس is best understood as:

• I wear
• or more naturally, I wear a jacket when it’s cold

In many Levantine varieties, this b- prefix is a key sign that the verb is in the ordinary present.

The subject is already built into the verb بلبس.

So بلبس by itself already means I wear.

You can add أنا if you want emphasis or contrast:

• أنا بلبس جاكيت = I wear a jacket
• maybe with emphasis: I wear a jacket

But in normal conversation, the pronoun is often omitted because the verb already tells you the subject.

Because جاكيت here is indefinite, so it means a jacket.

• بلبس جاكيت = I wear a jacket
• بلبس الجاكيت = I wear the jacket

So the version without الـ matches the English meaning a jacket, meaning any jacket, not a specific one.

Also, جاكيت is a common borrowed word in spoken Arabic.

It most naturally means a general habit:

• When it’s cold, I wear a jacket.
• Whenever it gets cold, I wear a jacket.

The combination of لما plus بلبس gives that repeated, usual-action meaning.

If you wanted to make it sound more like something happening right now, Levantine would often use other wording, depending on the region.

This is Levantine colloquial Arabic, not Modern Standard Arabic.

Clues include:

• لما used in a conversational way
• في برد as a spoken-weather expression
• بلبس with the Levantine present marker بـ
• no case endings

A more standard-Arabic version would be something like:

• عندما يكون الجو باردًا، أرتدي سترةً
• When the weather is cold, I wear a jacket

So the sentence you have is exactly the kind of thing people would say in everyday Levantine conversation.