Jadawalin ya canza.

Jadawali means schedule or timetable.

The ending -n here makes it definite, so jadawalin is the schedule. In other words:

• jadawali = schedule / a schedule
• jadawalin = the schedule

This -n ending is very common with masculine nouns in Hausa.

Not necessarily. Ya is the 3rd person singular masculine marker, so it can correspond to he or it, depending on the subject.

In this sentence, the subject is jadawalin, which is an inanimate noun, so English translates it as it:

• Jadawalin ya canza = The schedule changed / The schedule has changed

So even though ya is the same form used for he, here it is best understood as it.

This is a very common learner question.

In Hausa, it is normal to have:

• a full noun subject, and
• an agreeing subject marker before the verb

So Jadawalin ya canza is normal Hausa grammar.

A very literal breakdown would be something like:

• jadawalin = the schedule
• ya = it / 3rd person masculine subject marker
• canza = changed

So the structure is roughly The schedule it changed, even though that sounds wrong in English. In Hausa, this is standard.

Because jadawali is grammatically masculine in Hausa.

In the 3rd person singular, Hausa distinguishes masculine and feminine:

• ya = masculine
• ta = feminine

So with a masculine noun like jadawali, you use ya.

This is grammatical gender, not biological gender. Even inanimate things can be masculine or feminine.

It is the perfective form.

In English, that can often be translated in more than one way, depending on context:

• changed
• has changed
• sometimes did change

So Jadawalin ya canza can mean:

• The schedule changed
• The schedule has changed

The Hausa sentence itself does not force just one of those English options in isolation.

The dictionary form canza means to change.

But in this sentence, because of the marker ya, the whole verb phrase ya canza means changed / has changed.

So:

• canza by itself = to change
• ya canza = it changed / it has changed

Here it is intransitive.

That means the subject itself is the thing undergoing the change:

• Jadawalin ya canza = The schedule changed

There is no object in this sentence.

Hausa can also use canza transitively in other contexts, where someone changes something:

• Ya canza jadawalin = He changed the schedule

So in your sentence, the meaning is the schedule changed, not the schedule was changed.

You may hear bare nouns in some contexts, but for the schedule, jadawalin is the natural form.

So if the intended meaning is specifically the schedule, then:

• Jadawalin ya canza is the better choice

Without -n, jadawali sounds less definite, more like a schedule or just the basic noun form.

The basic order here is:

• subject noun
• subject marker
• verb

So:

• Jadawalin = subject noun
• ya = agreeing subject marker
• canza = verb

A very literal gloss would be:

• The schedule it changed

That is not how English works, but it is a useful way to understand the Hausa structure.

A rough English-friendly pronunciation is:

jah-dah-wah-lin yah CHAN-zah

A few helpful points:

• j sounds like English j
• c in Hausa sounds like ch
• z sounds like z
• ya sounds like yah

Also, standard Hausa spelling usually does not mark tone, so learners normally have to pick that up by listening and practice.