Uwa ta sa kankara a cikin ruwa domin ya yi sanyi sosai.

In Hausa, it is very normal to have a subject noun and a subject marker together.

So Uwa ta sa is literally something like Mother she put.

Here, ta is the 3rd person singular feminine subject marker, agreeing with Uwa (mother), and it marks the verb phrase. English does not usually do this, so it can feel repetitive to an English speaker, but in Hausa it is standard.

Here sa means put / place.

So ta sa kankara a cikin ruwa means she put ice in the water.

Many learners also meet the form saka. In many contexts, sa is the common shorter form you will hear and read. In this sentence, the meaning is clearly put.

a cikin ruwa means in the water.

It is made up of:

• a = in / at
• ciki = inside / interior
• -n = a linking element
• ruwa = water

So literally it is close to in the inside of water, but the natural English meaning is simply in the water.

Hausa usually does not use articles the way English does.

So:

• kankara can mean ice, the ice, or some ice
• ruwa can mean water or the water

The exact meaning comes from context. This is very normal in Hausa.

Here domin means so that / in order that.

It introduces the purpose or intended result of the action:

• Uwa ta sa kankara a cikin ruwa domin ya yi sanyi sosai
• Mother put ice in the water so that it would be very cold

In everyday speech, you may also hear don as a shorter alternative.

Here ya refers to ruwa (water), not to Uwa or kankara.

So the idea is:

• Mother put ice in the water so that the water would become very cold

That is why the second part talks about it becoming cold.

Because this is about grammatical gender, not biological sex.

In Hausa, nouns are treated as grammatically masculine or feminine, and agreement words change accordingly. Ruwa takes masculine agreement, so Hausa uses ya.

So ya here does not mean the water is literally male. It only means the noun ruwa is grammatically masculine.

This is a very common Hausa pattern.

sanyi means coldness / coolness, and yi appears in many expressions that English would translate with be, become, or sometimes do/make.

So:

• ya yi sanyi = it became cold / it is cold

It is best to learn yi sanyi as a set expression rather than translating it word-for-word.

sosai means very / very much.

It usually comes after the word or phrase it strengthens.

So:

• sanyi sosai = very cold

That is why it comes at the end of the sentence here.

The first part, Uwa ta sa, is most naturally understood as a completed action, so in English it is usually translated as Mother put...

The second part after domin expresses the intended or resulting state:

• so that it would be very cold
• or so that it became very cold

So yes, the sentence is commonly translated with a past meaning, but Hausa aspect does not always match English tense labels exactly.

Mostly yes, but with some important Hausa features.

The structure is roughly:

• Uwa = subject
• ta = subject marker
• sa = verb
• kankara = object
• a cikin ruwa = location
• domin ya yi sanyi sosai = purpose/result clause

A very literal version would be something like:

• Mother she-put ice in inside-of water so-that it became cold very

So the overall order is not too far from English, but the subject markers (ta, ya) and expressions like yi sanyi are especially important to notice.

Yes. Depending on context, domin can also have meanings related to for, because of, or for the sake of.

But in this sentence, the most natural meaning is clearly so that / in order that, because it introduces the result wanted from putting ice in the water.