الزبون الذي كان هناك في البنك نسي البطاقة.

there

Breakdown of الزبون الذي كان هناك في البنك نسي البطاقة.

• في: at/in
• ينسى: to forget
• الذي: that/which

Questions & Answers about الزبون الذي كان هناك في البنك نسي البطاقة.

Why does the sentence start with الزبون instead of a verb?

Arabic can begin either with a noun or with a verb.

Here, الزبون الذي كان هناك في البنك is the topic, and then نسي البطاقة tells you what happened to him. So the sentence is structured a bit like:

• The customer who was there in the bank — forgot the card

This is completely natural in Arabic.

You could also make a more verb-first version, such as نسي الزبون..., but the original sentence puts focus first on the customer.

What does الذي mean here?

الذي is the relative pronoun, meaning who, that, or which depending on context.

So:

• الزبون الذي... = the customer who...

In this sentence, الذي كان هناك في البنك is a relative clause describing الزبون.

Why is it الذي and not some other form?

Because الزبون is:

• singular
• masculine
• definite

So the matching relative pronoun is الذي.

Some common forms are:

• الذي = singular masculine
• التي = singular feminine
• الذين = masculine plural