Yara suna wasa a waje, amma uwa tana so su dawo cikin gida.

The children are playing outside, but mother wants them to come back inside.

Breakdown of Yara suna wasa a waje, amma uwa tana so su dawo cikin gida.

• ne: to be
• so: to want
• gida: the home
• yaro: the child

Questions & Answers about Yara suna wasa a waje, amma uwa tana so su dawo cikin gida.

In yara, how do I know it means “the children” and not just “children” in general?

Hausa doesn’t have a separate word for “the” like English does.

• yara by itself can mean:
  • children (in general), or
  • the children (specific ones), depending on context.

To make “the children” more explicit, Hausa often uses the determiner/possessive ending -n / -r:

• yaran – the children (definite)
• yaranmu – our children
• yaran su – their children

In your sentence, Yara suna wasa a waje…, context suggests we’re talking about specific children (the ones the mother is thinking about), so we translate it as “The children are playing outside…” even though there’s no separate word for the.

What is the structure of suna wasa? Is wasa a verb or a noun here?

In suna wasa:

• suna = “they are” (3rd person plural continuous/progressive marker)
• wasa = “play, playing” (originally a noun, but it functions verbally in this common pattern)

So suna wasa literally feels like “they are at play”, but is best translated as “they are playing.”

This pattern is very common:

• Ina wasa – I am playing
• Muna aiki – We are working
• Yana magana – He is talking

In all of these, the “verb” is often originally a noun (wasa = play, aiki = work, magana = speech/talking), but Hausa uses it with the progressive marker to express an ongoing action.