لما الواحد بكون تعبان، بيروح عالبيت بكير.

Here لما means when.

So the structure is:

• لما ... = when ...
• لما الواحد بكون تعبان = when a person is tired

In Levantine, لما is very commonly used to introduce a time clause like when.

Literally, الواحد means the one, but in everyday Levantine it often means:

• a person
• someone
• you in a general sense
• one as in formal English when one is tired...

So in this sentence, الواحد is not talking about one specific man. It means people in general.

A natural English equivalent is:

• When you’re tired, you go home early or
• When a person is tired, they go home early

In Levantine Arabic, the prefix بـ often marks the present/habitual.

So:

• بكون = is / tends to be / is being depending on context
• بيروح = goes / tends to go

In this sentence, the whole meaning is habitual or general:

• When a person is tired, they go home early

That is why both verbs have بـ:

• بكون = is
• بيروح = goes

Compared with Standard Arabic, this is different. A learner might expect يكون, but in Levantine everyday speech بكون is normal here.

Because the sentence expresses a general repeated situation, not a single one-time event.

The بـ prefix commonly marks:

• present
• habitual
• repeated action
• general truths

So the sentence means something like:

• When someone is tired, they go home early not
• When someone got tired, they went home early

That habitual feeling is shown by:

• بكون = is / tends to be
• بيروح = goes / tends to go

تعبان is the masculine form meaning tired.

The feminine form is:

• تعبانة

In this sentence, الواحد is grammatically masculine, so تعبان matches it.

If you were talking specifically about a woman, you could say:

• لما الوحدة بتكون تعبانة، بتروح عالبيت بكير.

But when الواحد is used in a general sense, masculine agreement is very common.

عالبيت is a contracted colloquial form of:

• على البيت

So:

• على = on / to / toward
• عالبيت = to the house / home

In everyday Levantine, على ال often gets shortened:

• على البيت → عالبيت

In this sentence, عالبيت is best understood as:

• home or
• to the house

So بيروح عالبيت = goes home

In Levantine, going somewhere is often expressed with على in places where English just uses to or no preposition at all.

So:

• راح عالبيت = he went home
• literally something like he went to the house/home

English says go home without to, but Arabic often uses a preposition here. That is normal and idiomatic.

بكير means early.

So:

• بيروح عالبيت بكير = he goes home early

In Levantine, بكير is very common. In some other dialects, especially Egyptian, you may hear بدري more often.

So for Levantine:

• بكير = the normal word to learn here

It describes a general truth or usual behavior.

It means:

• When a person is tired, they go home early not
• When that person was tired, they went home early

The clues are:

• لما introducing a general when clause
• بكون and بيروح with بـ, which fits habitual meaning
• الواحد, which refers to people in general

Yes, and it would be very natural too, but the meaning shifts slightly.

• لما الواحد بكون تعبان = when a person is tired

  • focuses on the state of being tired

• لما الواحد بيتعب = when a person gets tired / becomes tired

  • focuses more on the change into that state

Both can work in everyday speech. The original sentence emphasizes the condition being tired.

Because Arabic verbs already include the subject.

• بيروح by itself means he goes or someone goes, depending on context
• بكون means he is

Since الواحد was already mentioned, Arabic does not need an extra pronoun like هو here.

So the structure is perfectly normal:

• لما الواحد بكون تعبان، بيروح عالبيت بكير.

A simple transliteration is:

lamma l-wāḥad bkūn taʿbān, byrūḥ ʿal-bēt bakkīr

A few pronunciation notes:

• لما = lamma
• الواحد = il-wāḥad or l-wāḥad in flowing speech
• بكون = bkūn
  The short vowel before b is often very light or disappears.
• بيروح = byrūḥ
• عالبيت = ʿal-bēt
• بكير = bakkīr or bkīr depending on speaker and region

Different Levantine regions pronounce some vowels a little differently, but the sentence above is a good general guide.

The pattern is:

• لما + subject + verb/state, result clause

So here:

1. لما الواحد بكون تعبان

   • when a person is tired

2. بيروح عالبيت بكير

   • he goes home early

This is a very useful pattern in Levantine for general statements:

• لما الواحد بيجوع، بياكل
  • When a person gets hungry, they eat
• لما الواحد بيتأخر، بيستعجل
  • When a person is late, they hurry

So this sentence is a good model for building similar ones.