Fitilar mota tana aiki, sigina kuwa ba ya aiki.

Because fitilar mota is a noun-to-noun construction meaning the car’s light / car light.

The noun fitila becomes fitilar when it is linked to another noun. That -r is a common linker in Hausa genitive/possessive constructions.

So:

• fitila = lamp, light
• fitilar mota = car light / the light of the car

This is very common in Hausa:

• ƙofar gida = the door of the house
• littafin yaro = the boy’s book

So fitilar mota literally has the structure light-of car.

Tana aiki means it is working or it works.

Here:

• ta- refers to a feminine singular subject
• na is part of the tense/aspect marker
• aiki means work or functioning

So tana aiki is the normal way to say that something feminine is functioning.

Since fitila is a feminine noun in Hausa, the sentence uses tana:

• Fitilar mota tana aiki. = The car light is working.

Because sigina is being treated as a masculine noun.

In Hausa, nouns have grammatical gender, and agreement words change to match that gender. So:

• fitila is feminine → tana aiki
• sigina is masculine → ba ya aiki

Even though both things are inanimate, Hausa still uses grammatical gender. It is not about biological sex here; it is just how the noun behaves grammatically.

So:

• ya = masculine singular
• ta = feminine singular

Kuwa adds contrast or emphasis. In this sentence, it is close to:

• but
• however
• as for
• on the other hand

So:

• Fitilar mota tana aiki, sigina kuwa ba ya aiki.

means something like:

• The car light is working, but the signal is not.

It helps set up a contrast between the two parts of the sentence.

In Hausa, negation often uses ba before the subject marker.

So:

• yana aiki = it is working
• ba ya aiki = it is not working

The negative is built with:

• ba
  • subject marker + predicate

Here the subject marker is ya because sigina is masculine singular.

Compare:

• yana aiki = he/it is working
• ba ya aiki = he/it is not working
• tana aiki = she/it is working
• ba ta aiki = she/it is not working

Not exactly in the same way English uses a verb like work.

Aiki is a noun meaning work or activity, but in expressions like yana aiki or tana aiki, the whole phrase means is working / is functioning.

So Hausa often expresses this idea with a structure that is literally closer to is in a state of functioning/work than to a single standalone verb.

For a learner, the most useful thing is simply to remember:

• yana aiki = it works / it is working
• ba ya aiki = it doesn’t work / it isn’t working

Hausa does not have articles like English the and a/an in the same way.

Whether something is understood as:

• a car light
• the car light

depends on context.

So fitilar mota can be understood as car light or the car light, depending on the situation. In a real conversation, the meaning is usually clear from what people are talking about.

Because Hausa often does not use a separate verb exactly like English to be in these kinds of sentences.

Instead, Hausa uses subject/aspect markers such as:

• yana
• tana
• suna

So:

• tana aiki already contains the idea of is working
• ba ya aiki already contains the idea of is not working

You should think of tana and ya here as part of the grammatical system that expresses subject + tense/aspect, rather than trying to match each Hausa word to one English word.

It can often mean either, depending on context.

So:

• Fitilar mota tana aiki can mean The car light is working
• and in many situations also The car light works

Likewise:

• sigina kuwa ba ya aiki can mean but the signal isn’t working
• or but the signal doesn’t work

Hausa commonly lets context decide whether the meaning is immediate/present or more general.

Because Hausa agreement is based on grammatical gender and number, not just whether something is a person.

So inanimate nouns also take agreement markers:

• feminine singular noun → ta / tana
• masculine singular noun → ya / yana
• plural noun → su / suna

That is why a non-human noun like fitila can take tana, and another non-human noun like sigina can take ya.

This is normal in Hausa grammar.

Yes, very possibly.

Depending on context, sigina can mean signal, and with cars it can refer to a turn signal / indicator. So the sentence is naturally understood as something like:

• The car light is working, but the indicator isn’t.

If the meaning has already been given to the learner, then the main thing to notice is the grammar: sigina is the contrasting second subject, and kuwa helps mark that contrast.