السمسار حكى مع البواب قبل ما ينتقل المستأجر.

In Levantine, حكى very often means spoke, talked, or said, not just narrated.

So in this sentence, حكى مع البواب means he talked with the doorman.

A useful shortcut:

• حكى مع = talked with
• حكى لـ = said/told to

This is one of the most common everyday Levantine verbs for speaking.

Because مع shows that this was a two-way conversation: with the doorman.

So:

• حكى مع البواب = he talked with the doorman
• حكى للبواب = he spoke to / told the doorman

English also often makes this distinction:

• talk with
• talk to
• tell someone

Levantine does something similar with prepositions.

Here قبل ما means before followed by a verb clause.

So:

• قبل ما ينتقل المستأجر = before the tenant moves / moved

And no, this ما is not negation here. It is part of the common colloquial pattern قبل ما.

Compare:

• قبل ما يجي = before he comes
• قبل ما نروح = before we go

So treat قبل ما as a fixed expression in Levantine.

Because in Levantine, after expressions like قبل ما, Arabic commonly uses the imperfect verb to describe the action that is still upcoming relative to the main event.

So the timeline is:

• first: the broker talked with the doorman
• later: the tenant moved

That is why ينتقل appears after قبل ما.

This is very natural in Levantine. English often shifts tense differently, but Arabic does not have to match English tense patterns exactly.

By itself, ينتقل usually means move / relocate / transfer from one place to another.

So it does not automatically tell you whether the tenant is:

• moving in,
• moving out,
• or moving to another place.

The context decides.

In a housing sentence like this, many people will understand it simply as move. If the speaker wants to be more specific, they may choose a more explicit verb or add more context.

Because verb-first word order is very common in Arabic, including Levantine.

So:

• ينتقل المستأجر = the tenant moves is completely normal.

You may also hear noun-first order in some contexts, especially for emphasis or topic marking, but verb-first is very natural here.

So this part is not unusual:

• قبل ما ينتقل المستأجر

Because all three nouns are definite:

• السمسار = the broker
• البواب = the doorman
• المستأجر = the tenant

In Arabic, definiteness is marked directly on each noun with الـ.

Unlike English, Arabic does not use a separate standalone word like the. Instead, the article is attached to the noun itself.

Usually, yes in this kind of context.

سمسار can mean:

• broker
• agent
• middleman

In a sentence with البواب and المستأجر, the most natural interpretation is a real-estate broker / rental agent.

So even though the word can be broader, the housing context narrows it down.

It is very understandable as Levantine, and some parts are shared with Standard Arabic, but it has clear colloquial features.

The most colloquial parts are:

• حكى مع for talked with
• قبل ما for before

A more Standard Arabic version would usually look more like:

• تحدّث السمسار مع البواب قبل أن ينتقل المستأجر

So this sentence feels natural for Levantine learners, even though the vocabulary itself is not wildly different from Standard Arabic.

A rough Levantine-style pronunciation would be something like:

is-simsār ḥaka maʿ il-bawwāb ʔabl ma yinteʔel il-mustaʔjer

A few useful notes:

• السمسار starts with a sun letter (س), so the l of الـ is not pronounced clearly:
  is-simsār rather than il-simsār
• البواب and المستأجر begin with moon letters, so the l is pronounced:
  il-bawwāb, il-mustaʔjer
• The exact vowels can vary by region, so you may hear el- instead of il-, or slightly different vowel qualities.

Because this is Levantine-style usage, not fully inflected Standard Arabic.

In everyday spoken Levantine:

• case endings are not normally pronounced
• tanwīn is not used
• nouns usually appear without those final grammatical vowels

So learners should not expect endings like:

• السمسارُ
• البوابَ
• المستأجرِ

Those belong to formal Standard Arabic grammar, not ordinary Levantine speech.

For a female tenant, change both the noun and the verb:

• السمسار حكى مع البواب قبل ما تنتقل المستأجرة.

For plural tenants, a very natural Levantine way is:

• السمسار حكى مع البواب قبل ما المستأجرين ينتقلوا.

You can see the agreement clearly:

• masculine singular: ينتقل المستأجر
• feminine singular: تنتقل المستأجرة
• plural: المستأجرين ينتقلوا or ينتقلوا المستأجرين

So the verb changes to match the subject’s gender and number.