Ribut menyebabkan rumah itu hancur.

Here is the role of each word:

• Ribut = storm
• menyebabkan = caused / causes
• rumah itu = the house / that house
• hancur = destroyed, ruined, shattered

So the structure is roughly:

• Ribut = subject
• menyebabkan = verb
• rumah itu hancur = the result that was caused

A very natural English gloss is:

• The storm caused the house to be destroyed
• or The storm caused the house to be ruined

Malay does not use articles like a, an, and the in the same way English does.

So ribut can mean:

• a storm
• the storm
• sometimes just storm in a general sense

The exact meaning depends on context. In this sentence, English usually translates it as the storm or simply the storm/storm depending on the situation.

Itu literally often means that, but after a noun it very often marks something as specific or already known.

So rumah itu can mean:

• that house
• the house

In many sentences, noun + itu works a lot like English the when referring to a specific thing.

So here rumah itu does not always need to sound strongly like that house in English. Often the house is the best translation.

In Malay, demonstratives like ini and itu usually come after the noun:

• rumah ini = this house
• rumah itu = that house / the house

This is normal Malay word order. English puts this/that before the noun, but Malay places them after it.

Malay often does not need a verb like to be in this kind of sentence.

In English, you say:

• The house was destroyed
• The house is ruined

In Malay, the equivalent can simply be:

• rumah itu hancur

Literally, that is something like:

• the house destroyed/ruined

So hancur can function as the predicate without needing a separate word for is/was.

For an English speaker, it helps to think of hancur as a word meaning destroyed, ruined, or shattered.

In Malay, word classes can feel more flexible than in English. In this sentence, hancur behaves like a predicate describing the resulting state of the house.

So rumah itu hancur means:

• the house is ruined
• the house was destroyed

You do not need a separate be verb.

Menyebabkan means to cause.

It comes from the root sebab, meaning cause or reason. The affixes meN- ... -kan turn it into a verb meaning to cause something.

So:

• Ribut menyebabkan rumah itu hancur = The storm caused the house to be ruined

This verb often introduces a result:

• X menyebabkan Y = X causes Y
• X menyebabkan Y hancur = X causes Y to be destroyed

Using menyebabkan focuses on causation rather than the direct action itself.

Compare:

• Ribut menyebabkan rumah itu hancur
  = The storm caused the house to be destroyed / ruined

• Ribut menghancurkan rumah itu
  = The storm destroyed the house

The difference is subtle:

• menyebabkan ... hancur emphasizes the result and the fact that the storm caused that result
• menghancurkan is more direct: the storm destroyed it

Both are natural, but they are not exactly the same in tone.

The sentence is mainly active.

Why?

• Ribut is the subject
• menyebabkan is an active verb with the meN- prefix

So the storm is actively doing the causing.

However, the result part rumah itu hancur describes what happened to the house, so the overall meaning in English may sound a bit like a passive result:

• The storm caused the house to be destroyed

But grammatically, the main verb menyebabkan is active.

Yes, it can be understood as a clause on its own.

• Rumah itu hancur = The house is ruined / The house was destroyed

Inside the full sentence, this acts as the result that menyebabkan introduces.

So the bigger structure is roughly:

• Ribut
  • menyebabkan
    • rumah itu hancur
• The storm
  • caused
    • the house to be ruined

This is one reason the sentence feels slightly different from a simple direct-object sentence.

Yes.

This is very common in Malay. Noun + itu can be translated in different ways depending on context:

• that house if the speaker is pointing it out or contrasting it
• the house if it is just a specific known house

So in isolation, both are possible. In natural translation, the house is often the smoothest choice unless the context clearly emphasizes distance or contrast.

Yes, that is possible, though it has a different structure and emphasis.

• Ribut menyebabkan rumah itu hancur
  focuses first on the storm

• Rumah itu hancur disebabkan ribut
  focuses first on the house

The second one is closer to:

• The house was destroyed because of the storm
• or The house was ruined due to the storm

So both are understandable, but the original sentence is a straightforward way to say that the storm caused the damage.

It is built from:

• sebab = cause, reason
• menyebabkan = to cause

This is a useful pattern in Malay. The prefix meN- and suffix -kan often create a transitive or causative verb.

So if you see menyebabkan, it is helpful to think:

• cause
• bring about
• make something happen

That is exactly what it is doing in this sentence.