Tsohon rufi ya lalace a damina da ta gabata.

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Breakdown of Tsohon rufi ya lalace a damina da ta gabata.

• da ta gabata: last
• damina: the rainy season
• tsoho: old
• rufi: the roof
• lalace: to be damaged

Questions & Answers about Tsohon rufi ya lalace a damina da ta gabata.

What does tsohon rufi mean exactly, and why is tsohon before rufi?

• rufi = roof, roofing.
• tsoho = old (also “old person/elder” as a noun).
• When tsoho comes before a noun to describe it, it usually appears as tsohon:
  • tsohon rufi = an old roof / the old roof.
• In Hausa, most adjectives follow the noun (e.g. gida babba – big house), but tsoho is one of the words that can come before the noun in a fixed phrase like:
  • tsohon gida – old/former house
  • tsohon shugaban ƙasa – former president

So tsohon rufi is a normal, idiomatic way to say old roof.

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What is the role of ya in ya lalace?

ya is the third‑person masculine singular subject pronoun/marker. It marks the subject tsohon rufi and also carries tense–aspect information (here, perfective):

• tsohon rufi (old roof) = subject noun phrase
• ya = he/it (masc.), perfective subject marker
• lalace = to get spoiled/ruined, to be damaged (intransitive)

So the structure is:

[Subject] [Subject marker] [Verb]
Tsohon rufi ya lalace = The old roof got ruined / became damaged.

In Hausa you normally need this subject marker (ya, ta, suka, etc.) before the verb even when the full noun subject is already stated.

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What exactly does lalace mean, and how is it different from lalata?

• lalace is an intransitive verb:

  • It means “to be ruined, to get damaged/spoiled, to be in a bad condition.”
  • Used when something ends up in a bad state, without focusing on who did it.
  • Example: Rufin ya lalace. – The roof is ruined / has gone bad.

• lalata is a transitive verb:

  • It means “to ruin, to destroy, to spoil (something).”
  • You normally say who or what did the ruining.
  • Example: Iska ta lalata rufin. – The wind ruined the roof.

In the sentence Tsohon rufi ya lalace, the focus is on the state/result (“the roof ended up ruined”), not on the agent.

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Is ya lalace more like “was damaged” or “has been damaged” or “got damaged”?

ya lalace uses the perfective aspect, which often corresponds to a completed change of state. In natural English, it can map to any of:

• got damaged / got ruined
• was damaged
• has been damaged / has got ruined

The key idea is that:

• The damage is complete.
• The roof is now in a ruined condition as a result of something that happened (in the last rainy season).

Context determines whether you translate it with “was”, “got”, or “has been” in English.

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Why is it ya for the roof, but ta later in da ta gabata?

Hausa has grammatical gender:

• rufi (roof) is masculine, so it takes ya:
  • Tsohon rufi ya lalace – The old roof (masc.) got damaged.
• damina (rainy season) is feminine, so it takes ta:
  • daminar da ta gabata – the rainy season that has passed
    (ta refers back to damina).

So:

• ya = he/it (masc.) – for rufi, gida, etc.
• ta = she/it (fem.) – for damina, shekara (year), mota (car), etc.

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What does a damina mean? Is a a preposition here?

Yes. a is a preposition that often corresponds to in/at/on/during in English, depending on context.

• damina = rainy season.
• a damina = in the rainy season / during the rainy season.

In time expressions:

• a dare – at night
• a safiya – in the morning
• a damina – in the rainy season

So in the sentence, a damina indicates when the roof was damaged.

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How should I understand da ta gabata in this sentence?

da ta gabata is a relative clause modifying damina:

• da – a relativizer, often translated as that/which/who.
• ta – third‑person feminine subject marker, referring to damina.
• gabata – “to pass, to be past,” here in a form meaning has passed / previous.

So:

• damina da ta gabata ≈ the rainy season that has passed, i.e. the last rainy season / the previous rainy season.

Putting it together:

• a damina da ta gabata = during the last rainy season.

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Why is it damina da ta gabata, not damina ya gabata?

Because damina is feminine:

• Feminine nouns (like damina, shekara, mota) use ta as the subject marker:
  • damina ta gabata – the rainy season passed.
• Masculine nouns (like rufi, gida) would use ya:
  • rufi ya gabata – (if that made sense; structurally, “the roof passed”).

So in a relative clause:

• damina da ta gabata = the rainy season that has passed.
• If the head noun were masculine, you’d get:
  • wata lokaci da ya gabata – a time that has passed.

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Should it be a damina da ta gabata or a daminar da ta gabata? What’s the difference?

You may hear both forms in real speech:

1. a daminar da ta gabata (more “complete”/careful form)

   • damina
     • -r (definite/construct ending) = daminar
   • Literally: “in the rainy season that has passed”

2. a damina da ta gabata (common in colloquial usage)

   • The -r is often dropped in fast or informal speech.
   • Still understood as “in the last rainy season.”

For learning purposes, a daminar da ta gabata is the more textbook‑like form, but you’ll hear and see both.

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Can the order change, like putting the time phrase first?

Yes. Hausa often allows the time expression to come at the beginning of the sentence for emphasis or flow:

• Tsohon rufi ya lalace a damina da ta gabata.
  – The old roof got damaged in the last rainy season.

• A damina da ta gabata, tsohon rufi ya lalace.
  – In the last rainy season, the old roof got damaged.

Both are correct; the meaning is the same. Moving a damina da ta gabata to the front just emphasizes when it happened.

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Is there a way to say the same thing using lalata instead of lalace?

Yes, but switching to lalata will focus on the agent (what caused the damage), so you normally add a subject for that verb:

• Iska ta lalata tsohon rufi a damina da ta gabata.
  – The wind destroyed the old roof in the last rainy season.

Here:

• Iska (wind) is the subject of ta lalata.
• The roof is now the object:
  • tsohon rufi = what got destroyed.

In your original sentence with lalace, the agent is left unspecified; it just states the result that the roof ended up ruined.

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How would this sentence change if we were talking about several old roofs instead of just one?

For a plural subject, both the noun and the subject marker change:

• Singular:

  • Tsohon rufi ya lalace a damina da ta gabata.
    – The old roof got damaged in the last rainy season.

• Plural (one natural way to say it):

  • Tsofaffin rufaye sun lalace a damina da ta gabata.
    – The old roofs got damaged in the last rainy season.

Changes:

• tsohon rufi → tsofaffin rufaye (old roofs).
• ya (3rd person masc. singular) → sun (3rd person plural).
• lalace stays the same verb; Hausa doesn’t change the verb form for plural here, only the subject marker changes.