كنت عم شوف الشاشة لما اشتغلت الكاميرا لحالها.

the

Breakdown of كنت عم شوف الشاشة لما اشتغلت الكاميرا لحالها.

• عم: am ...ing
• كان: to be
• لما: when

Questions & Answers about كنت عم شوف الشاشة لما اشتغلت الكاميرا لحالها.

What does كنت عم شوف mean grammatically?

It is a very common Levantine way to express the past continuous:

• كنت = I was
• عم = a marker showing an ongoing action
• شوف = see / watch

So كنت عم شوف means I was watching or I was looking at.

This pattern is extremely useful in Levantine:

• كنت عم باكل = I was eating
• كنت عم بكتب = I was writing
• كنت عم شوف = I was watching

In this sentence, it shows that the action of watching the screen was already in progress.

Why is it شوف and not أشوف?

In many Levantine varieties, the verb after عم may appear in a shorter colloquial form, so شوف here stands for أشوف.

So:

• عم شوف
• عم أشوف

Both can be heard, depending on region and speaking style.

A learner should mainly understand that in this sentence, عم شوف means I am / was watching in dialect speech. The dropped أ is normal in casual Levantine.

Why is there no word for I in the sentence?