Tashar mai tana kusa da hanya.

Because Hausa often changes the first noun when it is linked to another noun, in a pattern like X of Y.

• tasha = station
• tashar mai = literally station of fuel/oil

For many feminine singular nouns ending in -a, the noun changes to -ar in this linking form. So tasha becomes tashar before mai.

Here, mai means oil/fuel/petrol. So tashar mai is a fuel station, which English usually translates as gas station or petrol station.

This is important because Hausa also has another mai that can mean owner of or person who has. In this sentence, that is not the meaning.

That is just the normal English way of naming the place.

Hausa describes it as a station connected with fuel/oil, while:

• American English usually says gas station
• British English usually says petrol station

So the wording is different, but the place is the same.

In Hausa, sentences about location or current state often do not use a separate verb exactly like English is. Instead, Hausa uses a subject form like yana or tana.

So tana kusa da hanya means roughly:

• it is near the road
• it is located near the road

Here tana is the form that matches a feminine singular subject.

Yes. Tasha is grammatically feminine in Hausa, so it takes feminine agreement.

That is why you get:

• tashar in the linked form
• tana for it is

Grammatical gender in Hausa is not the same as natural gender. A place or object can still be grammatically feminine.

kusa means near or close, and da is used after it when you say what something is near.

So kusa da means near / close to.

Examples:

• kusa da hanya = near the road
• kusa da gida = near the house

It is best to learn kusa da as a set phrase.

No. In this sentence, da does not mean and.

The word da can have several different uses in Hausa, depending on context. In kusa da hanya, it is part of the expression kusa da, meaning near / close to.

So here:

• kusa da hanya = near the road not
• near and road

Hausa does not use articles in the same way English does. There is no direct equivalent that works exactly like a/an and the in every case.

Because of that, the sentence can be understood from context as:

• a gas station is near the road or
• the gas station is near the road

Also, the -r in tashar is not the word the. It is part of the linking form of the noun.

In Hausa, the main noun usually comes first, and the following noun helps specify it.

So Hausa says something more like:

• station of fuel

rather than:

• fuel station

That is why the order is tashar mai.

Hanya can mean road, way, route, or path, depending on context.

In this sentence, road is a natural translation, but in another sentence it could mean something like way or route instead.