Na duba madubin baya da gilashin gaba.

Here Na is the 1st person singular subject marker in the perfective/completed aspect.

So:

• Na duba = I looked / I checked / I have checked

Exactly which English tense sounds best depends on context, but the basic idea is that the action is viewed as completed.

Because duba can take a direct object in Hausa.

English often says:

• look at the mirror
• check the mirror

But Hausa can simply say:

• duba madubin baya

So a very literal gloss would be something like look/check the rear mirror, even though natural English usually adds at or chooses check.

This is because they are in a linked/construct form before another word that qualifies them.

The dictionary forms are:

• madubi = mirror
• gilashi = glass

But in this sentence they become:

• madubin baya
• gilashin gaba

This structure is very common in Hausa. You can think of it roughly as:

• madubin baya = mirror of the back → rear-view mirror
• gilashin gaba = glass of the front → front glass / windshield

So the final -n is part of the linking pattern, not a separate word meaning the.

Because Hausa usually puts the main noun first, then the word that describes or specifies it.

So Hausa says:

• madubin baya = literally mirror back
• gilashin gaba = literally glass front

But English usually prefers:

• rear mirror
• front glass / windshield

So this is a normal word-order difference between the two languages.

Here da means and.

It is joining two noun phrases:

• madubin baya
• gilashin gaba

So the sentence is saying the speaker checked the rear-view mirror and the windshield/front glass.

It is true that da can also mean with in other sentences, so learners often have to decide from context. In this sentence, it is clearly connecting two things in a list.

No, not as a separate word.

Hausa does not use the the way English does. Definiteness is often understood from:

• context
• the type of noun phrase
• what speaker and listener already know

So madubin baya can naturally be understood as the rear-view mirror, even though there is no separate word for the.

No. They are broader words.

Common meanings include:

• baya = back, behind, rear, later/after
• gaba = front, ahead, forward

In this sentence, they are being used to specify location or orientation:

• madubin baya = the mirror associated with the back/rear
• gilashin gaba = the glass associated with the front

So they are very useful words, and you will see them in many other contexts too.

Not strictly in the English sense.

Na duba is better described as perfective/completed aspect. In many situations, English will translate it as simple past:

• I checked
• I looked

But depending on context, it can also feel like:

• I have checked
• I have looked

So it is best not to force a one-to-one match with a single English tense label.

Yes, that is grammatically fine.

It would still mean that you checked both things. Changing the order usually just changes:

• what is mentioned first
• what feels slightly more prominent
• sometimes the natural flow of the situation

So the original sentence is not the only possible order, but it is a normal one.

A very literal breakdown is:

• Na = I
• duba = looked at / checked
• madubin baya = rear mirror / mirror of the back
• da = and
• gilashin gaba = front glass / glass of the front

So the structure is basically:

• I checked [rear-view mirror] and [front glass/windshield].

That makes it a good example of several common Hausa patterns at once:

• subject marker before the verb
• direct object after the verb
• noun + qualifier order
• da used as and
• linked noun forms like madubin and gilashin