Malami ya tambaye mu adireshin gidanmu da lambar wayar Baba.

the home

Breakdown of Malami ya tambaye mu adireshin gidanmu da lambar wayar Baba.

• da: and
• malami: the teacher
• baba: the father

Questions & Answers about Malami ya tambaye mu adireshin gidanmu da lambar wayar Baba.

What is the basic, word-by-word breakdown of Malami ya tambaye mu adireshin gidanmu da lambar wayar Baba?

Rough word-by-word:

• Malami – teacher
• ya – he (3rd person masculine singular subject pronoun, perfective)
• tambaye – asked
• mu – us (1st person plural object pronoun)
• adireshin – the address of (address + linking -n)
• gidanmu – our house / our home (gida = house + -nmu = our)
• da – and / with (here: and)
• lambar – the number of (lamba = number + linking -r)
• wayar – the phone of (waya = phone + linking -r)
• Baba – Dad / father (here: Dad’s name/title, like Dad in English)

So literally:
Teacher he asked us address-of our-house and number-of phone-of Dad.
Natural English: The teacher asked us for our home address and Dad’s phone number.

What exactly does ya mean here, and why do we need it?

Ya is a subject pronoun that also shows aspect/tense:

• ya = he (3rd person masculine singular) in the perfective aspect, usually translated as a simple past (he did X).

In Hausa you normally cannot say just Malami tambaye mu…
You need a subject pronoun + aspect marker: