Bankin ya toshe asusun.

the account

Breakdown of Bankin ya toshe asusun.

• banki: the bank
• ya: he/it
• toshe: to block; obstruct

Questions & Answers about Bankin ya toshe asusun.

Why is the sentence Bankin ya toshe asusun and not just Banki toshe asusu?

Because Hausa normally needs a subject marker / TAM marker between the subject noun and the verb.

So the structure is:

Bankin + ya + toshe + asusun
the bank + it (perfective) + block + the account

A very literal breakdown would be something like:

The bank it blocked the account

That may sound strange in English, but it is normal Hausa grammar.

What does ya mean here?

Here, ya is the 3rd person singular masculine perfective/completive marker.

In this sentence, it points back to Bankin, so it means it rather than he in natural English.

So:

ya toshe = it blocked / it has blocked

Learners often first meet ya as he, but in real Hausa it is also used for masculine singular non-human nouns.

Why is it Bankin instead of banki?

Banki is the basic noun, meaning bank.

Bankin is the definite form, meaning the bank.

That final is a very common Hausa way of marking definiteness with masculine nouns.