Breakdown of ’Yar uwa ta tana karatu ko tana aiki a asibiti kullum.
Questions & Answers about ’Yar uwa ta tana karatu ko tana aiki a asibiti kullum.
Rough word‑by‑word breakdown (using a natural interpretation like “My sister either studies or works at the hospital every day”):
- ’yar – daughter (female child)
- uwa – mother
- ’yar uwa – literally “daughter of (the same) mother” → sister
- ta – a possessive pronoun here: my (often written together as ’yar uwata “my sister”; in other contexts it can mean her)
- tana – she is …-ing (feminine subject + progressive aspect; see next questions)
- karatu – reading / study / schooling
- ko – or
- tana – again: she is …-ing (repeated for the second verb)
- aiki – work / job (here effectively “working”)
- a – in / at (preposition)
- asibiti – hospital
- kullum – every day / always
So a very literal gloss could be:
“My-sister she-is studying or she-is working at hospital every-day.”
’Yar uwa is a set expression:
- ’yar = daughter (female child)
- uwa = mother
In Hausa, a sister is often expressed as ’yar uwa, literally “daughter (of the same) mother” — i.e. another female child of your mother.
Similarly:
- ɗan uwa (ɗan = son) literally “son of (the same) mother” → brother
So:
- ’yar uwa = female sibling (sister)
- ɗan uwa = male sibling (brother)
That ta is a possessive pronoun attached to uwa, giving a meaning like “my sister” (or in other contexts “her sister”, depending on who is speaking).
Orthographically, you will very often see it written together:
- ’yar uwata – my sister
- ’yar uwarka – your (m.) sister
- ’yar uwarki – your (f.) sister
- ’yar uwarsa – his sister
- ’yar uwarta – her sister
In this sentence it is spaced as uwa ta, but it functions the same way: it marks whose sister it is.
Important: this ta is not the same piece as the ta inside tana; that one is the subject pronoun “she”.
tana is a contraction of two elements:
- ta – “she” (3rd person singular feminine subject)
- na – progressive aspect marker (roughly “be doing / be -ing”)
So ta + na → tana, meaning “she is (doing something now / habitually)”.
Some other forms:
- ina – I am …-ing
- kana – you (m.) are …-ing
- kina – you (f.) are …-ing
- yana – he is …-ing
- muna – we are …-ing
- suna – they are …-ing
So in the sentence:
- tana karatu – she is studying
- tana aiki – she is working
In this sentence they have different functions:
- ta (after ’yar uwa) – possessive: marks whose sister it is (often written as part of the noun, e.g. ’yar uwata “my sister”).
- tana – subject + aspect: “she is …-ing” (ta + na).
They are related forms (both involve ta), but in the sentence they do different jobs:
- ’yar uwa ta … → “my sister …”
- tana karatu → “she is studying”
So this is not accidental repetition; it’s two separate grammatical pieces.
You change both the kinship term and the verb agreement:
’yar uwa ta (my sister) → ɗan uwa na (my brother)
- ɗan uwa – brother (literally “son of (the same) mother”)
- na – here functioning as my with a masculine noun (often written ɗan uwana)
Feminine subject tana (she is) → masculine yana (he is)
So a parallel sentence would be:
Ɗan uwana yana karatu ko yana aiki a asibiti kullum.
My brother either studies or works at the hospital every day.
Key changes:
- ’yar → ɗan
- tana → yana
Karatu is quite broad. It can cover:
- reading (the physical act of reading a text)
- studying (doing academic work)
- schooling / education (“being in school”)
So:
- tana karatu could mean:
- she is studying,
- she is reading (a book), or
- she attends school / she is in school,
depending on context.
In your sentence, because it’s contrasted with tana aiki “she is working”, tana karatu is naturally understood as “she is studying / in school”.
Aiki is a noun meaning “work / job / task”, but in Hausa it is very common to express “to work” as:
- tana aiki – literally “she is (doing) work” → she is working
- yana aiki – he is working
- suna aiki – they are working
So grammatically, aiki is a noun, but tana aiki is the normal way to say “she works / she is working”.
Repeating tana is the normal and clearer pattern:
- tana karatu ko tana aiki
she is studying or (she is) working
If you say:
- tana karatu ko aiki a asibiti,
it can sound incomplete or ambiguous, because aiki without tana after a verb phrase might be read as just “work” as a thing, not clearly as a second predicate.
In coordination of two actions in Hausa, it’s very common (and safest for learners) to repeat the subject+aspect:
- tana cin abinci ko tana shan shayi
she is eating food or (she is) drinking tea
So keep tana before both karatu and aiki.
Yes, it’s the same word. ko means “or”.
Uses:
Between alternatives in a statement
- tana karatu ko tana aiki – she studies or works
In questions (often roughly “or / whether”)
- Ko kana lafiya? – Are you okay? (literally “Or you are well?”)
- Za ka zo ko ba za ka zo ba? – Will you come or not?
You may also see ko kuma (“or else / or alternatively”), which is just a slightly longer, sometimes more emphatic, way to say “or”.
a is a very common preposition that usually corresponds to “in / at / on”, depending on context.
- a asibiti – in/at the hospital
- a gida – at home
- a kasuwa – in/at the market
So here, a links the action tana aiki to the place asibiti:
tana aiki a asibiti – she works at the hospital.
Phonetically, a asibiti just has two adjacent a sounds; speakers usually say them smoothly as one long a‑like sequence.
Yes, asibiti is the standard Hausa word for “hospital”.
- It’s a loanword ultimately from Arabic (via older forms related to hospitals / infirmaries), adapted to Hausa sound patterns.
- In everyday Hausa, asibiti clearly and specifically means hospital (not just “clinic” in general, though small clinics may still be called asibiti).
So:
- a asibiti – at the hospital
- likita a asibiti – a doctor at the hospital
kullum means “every day / always”. In Hausa:
- It is very common to put adverbs of time like kullum at the end of the sentence:
- tana aiki a asibiti kullum – she works at the hospital every day.
You can also put kullum at the beginning for emphasis:
- Kullum ’yar uwa ta tana karatu ko tana aiki a asibiti.
Every day, my sister is either studying or working at the hospital.
Both word orders are grammatical; sentence‑final is the neutral, default placement for many time adverbs.
In Hausa, there is no separate present‑tense “to be” in verb sentences like English “is / am / are”. Instead, the idea of “is …‑ing” is expressed by:
- subject pronoun + aspect marker + verb/stative
In tana karatu:
- ta – she
- na – progressive aspect (be doing / be -ing)
- → tana karatu – she is studying / she studies (habitually)
So English “is” is not a separate word here; it is built into the combination ta + na inside tana.