لما شفت الكاسة عالارض، شلتها وحطيتها عالطاولة.

A natural pronunciation would be:

lamma sheft il-kāse ʿal-arḍ, shelt-ha w ḥaṭṭēt-ha ʿaṭ-ṭāwle.

A few notes:

• لما → lamma
• شفت → sheft
• الكاسة → il-kāse
• عالارض → ʿal-arḍ
• شلتها → shelt-ha
• وحطيتها → w ḥaṭṭēt-ha
• عالطاولة is written with ل, but because ط is a sun letter, it is pronounced more like ʿaṭ-ṭāwle

So the written form and the spoken form are very close, but assimilation happens in places like عالطاولة.

Here لما means when.

It introduces a time clause:

• لما شفت الكاسة عالارض = When I saw the cup on the floor

In Levantine, لما is very common in everyday speech for when. Depending on context, it can sometimes feel like when or once/as soon as.

Because شفت is the past tense, first person singular, of the verb to see.

So:

• شفت = I saw
• the -ت ending shows the subject is I

This is why Arabic often does not need a separate word for I. The verb itself already tells you who did the action.

الكاسة means the cup or sometimes the glass, depending on context.

Breakdown:

• كاسة = cup / glass
• الـ = the
• الكاسة = the cup

Yes, this is a very normal Levantine word. In Modern Standard Arabic, you are more likely to see كأس or كوب, but in Levantine كاسة is extremely common in everyday speech.

Also, كاسة is grammatically feminine, which matters later in the sentence.

عالارض is a shortened spoken form of:

• على الأرض = on the floor / on the ground

In Levantine, على الـ often becomes عالـ in normal speech:

• على الأرض → عالأرض / عالارض
• على الطاولة → عالطاولة

So:

• عالارض = on the floor
• عالطاولة = on the table

This contraction is extremely common in spoken Arabic.

The -ها is an attached object pronoun meaning her/it, and here it means it because it refers to الكاسة.

So:

• شلتها = I picked it up
• حطيتها = I put it

The it is feminine because كاسة is a feminine noun.

This is very common in Arabic: object pronouns are attached directly to the verb.

Because Arabic nouns have grammatical gender, not just natural gender.

Even though a cup is not biologically female, كاسة is a feminine noun, so anything referring back to it must match that gender.

That is why the sentence uses -ها and not a masculine object pronoun.

For comparison:

• feminine: الكاسة → شلتها
• masculine: الكوب → شلتو in Levantine

So the grammar is following the noun’s gender, not real-world sex.

شلتها comes from the verb شلّ, which in Levantine often means:

• to lift
• to carry
• to pick up

In this sentence, the best natural English translation is I picked it up.

So although the core idea is physically lifting or carrying something, in this context it specifically means you saw the cup on the floor and picked it up.

Because the verb form here is based on حطّيت = I put.

Then you add -ها = it:

• حطّيت
  • ها → حطّيتها

That ي is part of the spelling of the verb form; it is not a separate word. In Levantine spelling, writers often use ي to represent the long ē sound in forms like حطّيت.

So:

• حطيت = I put
• حطيتها = I put it

Because Arabic verbs already show the subject.

In this sentence:

• شفت = I saw
• شلت = I picked up
• حطيت = I put

So أنا is not necessary. You could add it for emphasis, but normally it is omitted.

This is one of the big differences from English: Arabic often leaves subject pronouns out when the verb already makes the subject clear.

Yes, this is clearly Levantine colloquial Arabic.

Some Levantine features here are:

• لما in casual spoken use
• كاسة
• عالارض / عالطاولة
• شلّ and حطّ as everyday spoken verbs

A more Modern Standard Arabic version would be something like:

عندما رأيتُ الكأسَ على الأرض، حملتُها ووضعتُها على الطاولة.

That said, the Levantine sentence is exactly the kind of thing people would actually say in daily conversation.