الشوط التاني كان ممتاز.

It is Levantine-style Arabic, especially because of التاني.

In Modern Standard Arabic, you would normally say:

الشوط الثاني كان ممتازًا

The Levantine version uses التاني instead of الثاني. That is very common in everyday speech.

Here is a word-by-word breakdown:

• الشوط = the half / the round / the period
• التاني = the second
• كان = was
• ممتاز = excellent

So the structure is basically:

the-half the-second was excellent

which naturally means The second half was excellent.

Because in Arabic, when a noun is definite and its adjective describes it, both usually take the definite article.

So:

• شوط تاني = a second half
• الشوط التاني = the second half

This is different from English, where only the appears once.

In Levantine Arabic, التاني is the common spoken form for second.

Compared with Standard Arabic:

• الثاني = Standard Arabic
• التاني = Levantine spoken Arabic

One important difference is that the ث sound in Standard Arabic often becomes ت in many Levantine varieties.

So:

• الثاني sounds roughly like ath-thāni
• التاني sounds more like et-tāni or it-tāni

A common Levantine-style pronunciation would be something like:

ish-shawṭ et-tāni
or in some accents
esh-shoṭ et-tēne

A few helpful notes:

• The ال in الشوط is not pronounced as a full al sound here, because ش is a sun letter. So it becomes something like ish-sh... or esh-sh...
• The same thing happens in التاني, because ت is also a sun letter, so you hear et-t... rather than al-t...

شوط can mean different things depending on context, especially in sports.

Common meanings include:

• half
• round
• period
• sometimes leg or stretch

In this sentence, the most likely meaning is half, as in a game or match:

• الشوط الأول = the first half
• الشوط التاني = the second half

كان is the past tense of to be.

In Arabic, the verb to be is usually not stated in the present tense, but it is used in the past.

So:

• الشوط التاني ممتاز = The second half is excellent
• الشوط التاني كان ممتاز = The second half was excellent

That is why كان appears here.

Yes, but then the meaning changes to the present.

• الشوط التاني ممتاز = The second half is excellent
• الشوط التاني كان ممتاز = The second half was excellent

So كان is what makes the sentence past tense.

ممتاز is agreeing with الشوط, which is masculine singular, so ممتاز stays in the masculine singular form.

If the noun were feminine, you would usually use:

• ممتازة = excellent for a feminine singular noun

For example:

• المباراة كانت ممتازة = The match was excellent

But here:

• الشوط is masculine
• so ممتاز is correct

Yes. التاني is an ordinal adjective, meaning it tells you the order of something: second.

It describes الشوط:

• الشوط = the half
• التاني = second

So together they mean the second half.

Yes. Arabic allows some flexibility.

This sentence:

الشوط التاني كان ممتاز

is very natural and means The second half was excellent.

You could also hear:

كان الشوط التاني ممتاز

That also means the same thing. The difference is more about emphasis and style than basic meaning.

The version you were given sounds very natural in conversation, especially when the speaker is talking about the second half as the topic first.