Learn Hardcore Hausa: Za mu zauna da baƙuwa a falo mu ci abinci tare. - We will sit with the female guest in the living room and eat together.

So literally something like:
Will we sit with (a) female guest in (the) living room we eat food together.
In natural English: We will sit with the (female) guest in the living room and eat together.

What exactly does za do in za mu zauna? Is it like “will”?

Yes. Za is a future marker.

mu zauna on its own could be a kind of hortative / subjunctive (“let’s sit” in some contexts).
When you put za in front: za mu zauna, it is understood as “we will sit / we are going to sit.”

Pattern to remember:

za + subject pronoun + verb
- za ni tafi – I will go
- za mu zauna – we will sit
- za su ci abinci – they will eat

So za is not a pronoun; it doesn’t mean “we”. It just marks future. You still need the subject pronoun (ni, ka, ki, shi, ta, mu, ku, su) after it.

Why is mu repeated in za mu zauna ... mu ci abinci? Could we drop the second mu?

The two mu’s actually play two slightly different roles:

za mu zauna
- mu here is the normal subject pronoun for “we” after the future marker za:
  - za mu zauna – we will sit.
mu ci abinci
- this mu is a subjunctive / sequential form often used to link a second action by the same subject:
  - literally something like: that we eat food / for us to eat food.

Together: Za mu zauna … mu ci abinci ≈
We will sit … and (then) we’ll eat food.

In this kind of structure, you cannot normally drop the second mu.
You would not say:

✗ Za mu zauna da baƙuwa a falo ci abinci tare.

You need that second mu to introduce the second verb ci:

✓ Za mu zauna da baƙuwa a falo mu ci abinci tare.

Think of it as:
We will sit with the guest in the living room, (then) we (should / will) eat together.

Why is it baƙuwa and not baƙo? What is the difference?

Hausa marks gender for many human nouns:

baƙo – male guest / male visitor
baƙuwa – female guest / female visitor
baƙi – guests (plural, mixed or unspecified gender)

So:

da baƙo – with a male guest
da baƙuwa – with a female guest

In your sentence, baƙuwa tells us that the guest is female. There is no article like “a/the” in Hausa; whether you translate it as a guest or the guest depends on context in English.

How do you pronounce the letter ƙ in baƙuwa, and what does the dot under it mean?

The dot under ƙ shows that it is a different consonant from plain k.

k – an ordinary k sound, like in English “keep”.
ƙ – an ejective k, pronounced with a little “popping” sound made by building up pressure in the mouth and releasing it suddenly, without using a strong breath from the lungs.

For learners, a good approximation is:

pronounce ƙ as a slightly “harder, tighter k”, almost like a crisp k!

So baƙuwa is roughly:

ba-ƙu-wa
- ba as in “ba” in “bar” (short)
- ƙu with that tight k sound
- wa as in “wa” in “water”

The important point: ƙ and k are different letters in Hausa, and sometimes distinguish different words.

What exactly does da mean in da baƙuwa? Is it “with” or “and”?

da has several related uses in Hausa. The two most common are:

“with” (preposition)
- Ina tafiya da shi. – I am going with him.
- Za mu zauna da baƙuwa. – We will sit with the guest.
“and” (linking nouns/pronouns)
- Ali da Aisha – Ali and Aisha
- ni da kai – you and I

In da baƙuwa it clearly means “with a (female) guest”, because it comes right after the verb zauna:

zauna da baƙuwa – sit with a female guest

So here it is a preposition of accompaniment, not just a simple list “X and Y”.

What does a falo mean exactly, and could the word order be different?

a falo means “in the living room / in the sitting room”.

a – preposition “in / at / on” (location)
falo – living room / sitting room / lounge

Typical pattern:

a + place word
- a gida – at home
- a kasuwa – at the market
- a falo – in the living room

Word order:

Za mu zauna da baƙuwa a falo … – We will sit with the guest in the living room …

You could move a falo earlier or later for emphasis or style, but the given order is very natural:

Za mu zauna da baƙuwa a falo mu ci abinci tare. (very natural)
Za mu zauna a falo da baƙuwa mu ci abinci tare. (also possible)

In both cases a falo still means “in the living room”; Hausa is fairly flexible with the positions of these short prepositional phrases, as long as the meaning stays clear.

Why is it ci abinci and not just ci? Does ci abinci mean something special?

ci is the verb “to eat”.
abinci is the noun “food” / “meal”.

ci abinci literally = eat food.

In practice:

ci abinci is a very common way to say simply “to eat” / “to have a meal”.
Often it behaves almost like a fixed expression:
- Za mu ci abinci. – We will eat. / We’ll have a meal.

You can sometimes drop abinci when the context is clear:

Ka ci? – Have you eaten?
Na riga na ci. – I’ve already eaten.

But including abinci (as in your sentence) is very natural, especially when you introduce the activity for the first time: mu ci abinci tare – for us to eat food together / for us to eat together.

What does tare add at the end of mu ci abinci tare? Could it go somewhere else?

tare means “together”.

mu ci abinci tare – we (should) eat food together

Functionally:

It emphasizes that the eating is a shared activity, not each person separately.

Position:

The usual place for tare is after the verb phrase:
- Za mu yi aiki tare. – We will work together.
- Sun yi tafiya tare. – They traveled together.
- Mu ci abinci tare. – Let’s eat together.

You would almost always put tare at or near the end of the clause, just like in your sentence. Other positions would sound odd or unnatural; for learners, it’s safest to keep tare at the end of the action it belongs to.

Why is the second part mu ci abinci and not za mu ci abinci? Does that change the meaning?

Yes, the choice mu ci (without za) is meaningful.

Compare:

Za mu zauna da baƙuwa a falo za mu ci abinci.
- Literally: We will sit with the guest in the living room, we will eat food.
- Two separate future statements. It sounds like two parallel actions.
Za mu zauna da baƙuwa a falo mu ci abinci tare.
- Here the second mu ci is subjunctive / sequential.
- It links the second action closely to the first:
  We will sit with the guest in the living room and (then / in order to) eat together.

So:

za mu ci = straightforward future “we will eat”.
mu ci after another verb = often “for us to eat / so that we eat / and then we eat”.

In everyday speech, your sentence with mu ci sounds very natural and smooth, like describing a planned sequence of things you will do with the guest.