Learn Hardcore Hausa: Jiya littafina ya ɓace a makaranta. - Yesterday my book got lost at school.

Jiya – yesterday (a time adverb).
littafina – my book.
- littafi – book.
- -na – possessive suffix meaning my.
- So littafi + -na → littafina = my book.
ya – 3rd person masculine singular subject marker (he/it).
ɓace – got lost / disappeared / is missing (perfective aspect).
a – preposition in / at / on (here: at).
makaranta – school.

So the structure is roughly: Yesterday my-book it-got-lost at school.

If littafina is the subject, why do we also need ya in the sentence?

In Hausa, a finite verb almost always needs a subject marker right before it. That marker is a short pronoun that shows person, number, gender, and aspect.

Here the subject is littafina (my book).
The subject marker is ya (he/it, 3rd person masculine singular, perfective).
The verb is ɓace (got lost).

So:

Littafina ya ɓace ≈ My book, it got lost.

You cannot normally say:

✗ Jiya littafina ɓace a makaranta. (ungrammatical as a normal sentence)

You must keep the subject marker:

✓ Jiya littafina ya ɓace a makaranta.

What you can drop is the full noun if it is understood:

Ya ɓace a makaranta. – It got lost at school. (when the “it” is clear from context)

Which part of the sentence shows that this happened in the past?

Two things work together:

Jiya – explicitly says yesterday, so it clearly places the event in the past.
ya ɓace – this is the perfective form (completed action). The perfective is normally interpreted as past when there is no other time expression.

So:

Ya ɓace. – It got lost / It is lost (now as a result) – context usually makes it past.
Jiya ya ɓace. – It got lost yesterday – clearly past.
Jiya littafina ya ɓace a makaranta. – fixes the time (yesterday), subject (my book), and place (at school).

Could I leave out ya and say Jiya littafina ɓace a makaranta?

No, that would be ungrammatical in normal Hausa.

For a regular verbal sentence in Hausa:

You need the subject marker (na, ka, ya, ta, mun, sun, …) before the verb.
The full noun phrase (littafina) is optional for context; the subject marker is not.

Correct:

Littafina ya ɓace.
Ya ɓace. (if we already know which “it” we’re talking about)

Incorrect:

✗ Littafina ɓace.

Why is the subject marker ya (masculine) used and not ta (feminine)?

Hausa nouns have grammatical gender (masculine or feminine), and the subject marker agrees with that gender.

littafi (book) is grammatically masculine, so it takes ya:
- Littafina ya ɓace. – My book got lost.
A feminine noun would use ta:
- Motata ta ɓace. – My car got lost / disappeared. (mota, car, is feminine.)

So ya here matches the gender of littafi (masculine), not any natural gender.

How exactly does littafi turn into littafina for “my book”? Are there other similar forms?

Yes. littafina is formed by attaching a possessive suffix to the noun:

littafi – book
littafina – my book

Common singular possessive suffixes:

-na – my
- gidana – my house (from gida)
- littafina – my book
-ka – your (masc. sg)
- littafinka – your book (to a man)
-ki – your (fem. sg)
- littafinki – your book (to a woman)
-sa – his / its (masc.)
- littafinsa – his book
-ta – her / its (fem.)
- littafinta – her book

So littafina is just littafi + -na.

What is the difference between littafina and littafina ne?

Both contain littafina (my book), but ne changes the sentence type:

littafina – just the noun phrase my book.
littafina ne – something like it is my book (an equational / identifying sentence).

Use ne/ce to make sentences like:

Wannan littafina ne. – This is my book.
- ne agrees with a masculine noun (littafi).
Waccan mota taka ce. – That is your car. (fem. noun mota, so ce)

In Jiya littafina ya ɓace a makaranta, you already have a full verbal sentence (ya ɓace), so you do not add ne/ce there.

How is ɓace pronounced, and what is that special letter ɓ?

The letter ɓ represents a voiced bilabial implosive. For an English speaker:

Start as if you are going to say b in book.
Keep your lips together.
Instead of pushing air out strongly, you gently pull a little air in while voicing.

So:

ɓ is not exactly the same as English b, though many learners approximate it with a normal b at first.
ɓace is roughly BAH-cheh, but with that special ɓ sound at the start.

Hausa contrasts b and ɓ, so for native speakers they are different sounds.

What is the difference between ɓace and ɓata? Could I say Na ɓata littafina instead?

Yes, and there is an important difference:

ɓace – to be lost, to disappear (intransitive)
- Littafina ya ɓace. – My book got lost / is missing.
- Focuses on the state or event of the book being lost; no explicit “loser” (person) is mentioned.
ɓata – to lose something, to waste, to spoil (transitive)
- Na ɓata littafina. – I lost my book. (literally: I caused my book to be lost.)
- Here na is 1st person subject marker (I), and there is a clear agent (the person who did the losing).

So:

Jiya littafina ya ɓace a makaranta. – neutral: my book ended up lost at school.
Jiya na ɓata littafina a makaranta. – I’m taking blame: Yesterday I lost my book at school.

Does a makaranta mean “in school” or “at school”? Is a always translated the same way?

The preposition a is quite flexible. It usually covers English:

In this sentence:

a makaranta is best understood as “at school” (at that location or institution).

Some nuances:

a makaranta – generally at school / in school (location is “the school” as a place or institution).
a cikin makaranta – inside the school (building), more physically “inside”.

So translation depends on context:

a gida – at home / in the house
a kasuwa – at the market / in the market

Can the word jiya be put somewhere else in the sentence, or must it come first?

Jiya is a time adverb and has some flexibility in position. All of these are possible:

Jiya littafina ya ɓace a makaranta.
Littafina ya ɓace jiya a makaranta.
Littafina ya ɓace a makaranta jiya.

Notes:

Putting jiya at the beginning (Jiya …) is very common and sounds natural; it sets the time frame up front.
Putting jiya after the verb or at the end is also grammatical; it just changes the rhythm a bit.

So you are not forced to keep jiya in only one position, but sentence-initial is probably the most typical and neutral.

Do I always need the preposition a before a place like makaranta to say where something happened?

For a plain locative meaning (“at/in a place”), yes, you normally use a:

a makaranta – at school
a gida – at home
a kasuwa – at the market

Without a, makaranta is just the noun school, not a prepositional phrase:

Makaranta ce. – It is a school.
Na je makaranta. – I went to school.
- Here after je (go), the bare noun makaranta behaves more like an object/goal (go (to) school), so a is not required.

In Jiya littafina ya ɓace a makaranta, we are describing where the book was lost, so the preposition a is appropriate to mark the location.

Why is there no word like “the” in littafina or makaranta? How is definiteness expressed here?

Hausa does not have a separate article like English “the” or “a”. Definiteness is shown in other ways:

Possession makes a noun definite:
- littafina – my book (already specific/definite).
Context and familiarity: a bare noun can be understood as the … or a … depending on context.
- a makaranta can mean at a school or at the school.

So in Jiya littafina ya ɓace a makaranta:

littafina is clearly definite (my book).
makaranta is context-dependent:
- Often understood as at (the) school (the one both speaker and listener have in mind).