Learn Hardcore Hausa: Iyali na suna gida da yamma kullum. - My family is at home in the evening every day.

Iyali – family
na – my (1st person singular possessive)
suna – they are / they (be) [3rd person plural, present/habitual]
gida – home / house
da yamma – in the evening (literally: with/evening; an idiomatic time phrase)
kullum – always / every day / every time

So a natural English translation is “My family is at home every evening.”

Why is it Iyali na (family my) and not na iyali (my family) like in English?

In Hausa, the possessed thing usually comes first, and the possessor comes after as a short ending (a clitic):

iyali na – my family
gida na – my house
mota ta – my car (from mota
- ta “my” for feminine nouns / agreement)

So:

Iyali na = family my → my family

If you reversed it to na iyali, it would be understood as something like “of the family”, not a normal way to say my family.

If you drop na and just say Iyali suna gida da yamma kullum, it means “The family is at home every evening”, more general, not specifically my family.

Why do we use suna here? Isn’t family singular in English? Why not something like a singular verb?

In Hausa, iyali (family) is treated as grammatically plural, similar to “they”:

Suna gida – They are at home
Iyali na suna gida – My family (they) are at home

So even though English usually says “My family is …”, Hausa thinks of iyali as “they” and uses the 3rd person plural form (su-).

What exactly is suna? Is it one word or two (su + na), and what does it do?

Suna is historically su + na:

su – they
na – an imperfective/continuous marker (roughly “be doing / be in a state of”)

In modern usage, suna is treated as one word that marks 3rd person plural, present / ongoing / habitual:

Suna gida. – They are at home.
Suna aiki. – They are working.
Suna cin abinci. – They are eating.

Other persons follow a similar pattern:

Ina gida. – I am at home.
Kana / Kina gida. – You (m/f) are at home.
Yana / Tana gida. – He / She is at home.
Muna gida. – We are at home.
Kuna gida. – You (plural) are at home.
Suna gida. – They are at home.

Where is the verb “to be” in this sentence? How does Hausa say “is / are”?

Hausa does not use a separate verb like English “to be” in this kind of sentence.

Instead, the pattern is:

[subject] + [appropriate “na/na-type” form] + [place/state]

So:

Iyali na suna gida
literally: My family they‑are home → My family is at home.

There is no extra word equivalent to “is/are”; the form like ina / yana / suna already carries that meaning of “is/are (in some state or place)”.

Why is it suna gida and not suna a gida? Don’t we need a preposition like “at” before gida?

You can use a (at/in) before place words, but with very common location nouns like gida (home), Hausa often drops the preposition:

Suna gida. – They are at home.
Suna a gida. – They are at home. (also correct, a bit more explicit)

Both are acceptable. In everyday speech, suna gida is very common and completely natural.

I learned da means “and / with”. Why does da yamma mean “in the evening”?

You’re right that da often means “and” or “with”:

Ali da Musa – Ali and Musa
Zan tafi da kai. – I will go with you.

But da is also used in fixed time expressions to mean something like “at / in (time of)”:

da safe – in the morning
da rana – in the afternoon / daytime
da yamma – in the evening
da dare – at night

So da yamma is an idiomatic phrase meaning “in the evening”, not literally “with the evening” in English terms.

What does kullum add here, and can its position in the sentence change?

Kullum means “always / every day / all the time”.
In this sentence, it gives the meaning “every evening” or “in the evening, always”:

Iyali na suna gida da yamma kullum.
– My family is at home every evening.

You can move kullum around without changing the basic meaning; the difference is mostly emphasis:

Kullum iyali na suna gida da yamma.
– Every day, my family is at home in the evening. (focus on the “every day” part)
Iyali na kullum suna gida da yamma.
– My family is always at home in the evening. (focus slightly more on “always”)

All are understandable; learners usually start with kullum at the end, as in the original sentence.

How would I say “My family is not at home every evening” in Hausa?

A natural negative version is:

Iyali na ba su gida da yamma kullum ba.

Structure:

Iyali na – my family
ba su … ba – they are not … (negative frame around the predicate)
gida da yamma kullum – at home in the evening every day

Literally: My family, they‑are‑not at home in the evening always.

How could I change the sentence to talk about the future, like “My family will be at home this evening”?

Use the future marker za plus the appropriate pronoun:

Iyali na za su kasance gida da yamma yau.
– My family will be at home this evening.

Breakdown:

Iyali na – my family
za su – they will
kasance – be (exist in a state)
gida – at home
da yamma yau – this evening (literally “in the evening today”)

In casual speech you may also hear shorter variants, e.g.:

Iyali na za su kasance gida da yamma. – My family will be at home in the evening.
Iyali na za su gida da yamma yau. – (colloquial, literally “my family will home this evening”.)

How would I say “our / his / their family is at home every evening” using this pattern?

You keep the same structure and just change the possessive ending on iyali:

Iyalinmu suna gida da yamma kullum.
– Our family is at home every evening.
Iyalinsa suna gida da yamma kullum.
– His family is at home every evening.
Iyalinsu suna gida da yamma kullum.
– Their family is at home every evening.

Forms:

-na – my → Iyali na
-mu – our → Iyali
- n
  - mu → Iyalinmu
-sa – his → Iyalinsa
-su – their → Iyalinsu

Orthography note: you may see these written either together (e.g. iyalinsa) or separated (e.g. iyalin sa). Both are common in real texts.