Learn Hardcore Hausa: Sabuwar rigar ta yi tsada sosai a kasuwa. - The new shirt was very expensive at the market.

Sabuwar – new (feminine form of sabo/sabuwa, used before a noun)
rigar – the dress/gown/shirt (base form riga “dress”, with -r marking definiteness: “the dress”)
ta – she/it (3rd person singular feminine subject pronoun, referring back to riga)
yi – do / make, but in this pattern it functions like “become/be” with certain qualities
tsada – expensiveness / expensive (a noun used as an adjective: “be expensive”)
sosai – very, really, a lot
a – in/at (preposition)
kasuwa – market

Natural translation: “The new dress was/has become very expensive at the market.”

Why does the adjective Sabuwar come before rigar? I thought Hausa adjectives usually follow the noun.

You’re right that most Hausa adjectives come after the noun:

riga ja – a red dress
mota babba – a big car

But some common adjectives (especially “new, old, big, small, good, bad”, etc.) can appear before the noun in a special pattern. Sabo/sabuwa (“new”) is one of those:

sabuwar riga – a new dress
sabon gida – a new house

So Sabuwar rigar is the normal, idiomatic way to say “the new dress”.

What is the function of the -r ending in Sabuwar and rigar?

There are actually two different -r endings here:

Sabuwar = sabuwa + -r
- This -r is a linking consonant used when certain adjectives come before a feminine noun.
- Masculine: sabon gida (new house) – linker is -n
- Feminine: sabuwar riga (new dress) – linker is -r
rigar = riga + -r
- This -r is a definiteness marker, roughly like English “the”.
- riga – a dress
- rigar – the dress / that dress (depending on context)

So:

sabuwar riga = a new dress
sabuwar rigar = the new dress

In your sentence, the -r on rigar makes the dress definite, so the whole NP is best read as “the new dress”.

What does ta refer to here, and why is it feminine?

ta is:

3rd person singular
feminine
subject pronoun (also carrying perfective aspect)

It refers back to rigar (dress), which is a feminine noun in Hausa. Hausa pronouns must agree in gender with the noun:

riga (dress) → feminine → ta
gida (house, masculine) → ya

So:

Sabuwar rigar ta yi tsada…
– The new dress, it became/was expensive…

If the subject were a masculine noun, you’d get ya yi tsada, not ta yi tsada.

Is ta yi tsada past, present, or “has become”?

ta yi is the 3rd person feminine perfective form of yi (“do, make”).

With a quality noun like tsada (“expensiveness”), the pattern ta yi tsada most naturally means:

“It became expensive” / “It (has) turned out expensive”, or
In many contexts, effectively “it is expensive (now)” as a result of that becoming.

So depending on context, you can translate:

The new dress was very expensive at the market.
The new dress has become very expensive at the market.

It isn’t a general, timeless fact (that would typically use tana da tsada or a similar structure), but a completed situation: at that time (or by now), it ended up being expensive.

Why do we say ta yi tsada instead of something like ta tsada or ta kasance tsada?

Hausa often uses yi + a quality noun to express “be / become X” where X is an abstract noun:

ta yi tsada – it became/was expensive
ta yi kyau – she/it is/has become beautiful
ya yi tsawo – he/it grew tall / is tall now
abin ya yi kyau – the thing is good / turned out well

So yi here doesn’t mean “do” in a concrete sense, but acts like a copular / inchoative verb: “be, become, turn out”.

You could express the idea in other ways, but yi tsada is the most natural and common way to say “be expensive” in many contexts.

What exactly does tsada mean here? Is it a noun or an adjective?

tsada is morphologically a noun, meaning “expensiveness, high price”.

However, in combinations like yi tsada, it functions like an adjective:

ta yi tsada – literally: it did expensiveness
– functionally: it became/was expensive

This is a common pattern in Hausa: many qualities are expressed as nouns but used predicatively with yi:

ya yi muni – he/it was ugly (muni = ugliness)
motar ta yi tsada – the car was expensive

So you can think of tsada as the quality “expensive”, even though technically it’s a noun.

What does sosai add to the meaning? Can it be placed somewhere else in the sentence?

sosai is an intensifier, meaning “very, really, a lot”.

ta yi tsada – it was expensive
ta yi tsada sosai – it was very expensive / really expensive

Typical and most natural placement is right after the quality being modified:

ta yi tsada sosai – very expensive
ta yi kyau sosai – very beautiful

You can move sosai to other positions for emphasis in casual speech, but that’s less neutral and may sound marked. For a learner, it’s safest to keep:

[verb] + [quality] + sosai

as in the original sentence.

Could I say Sabuwar riga ta yi tsada sosai a kasuwa instead of Sabuwar rigar…? What would be the difference?

Yes, you can say both, but there is a subtle difference:

Sabuwar riga ta yi tsada sosai a kasuwa.
- riga = a dress (indefinite)
- Natural reading: “A new dress was very expensive at the market.”
Sabuwar rigar ta yi tsada sosai a kasuwa.
- rigar = the dress (definite)
- Natural reading: “The new dress was very expensive at the market.”
  (some specific dress already known in the context)

So rigar with -r points to a specific, known dress. Without -r, it’s more like “a” in English.

What does a kasuwa mean exactly, and is it more like “in the market” or “at the market”?

a = a general preposition, often “in, at, on” depending on context
kasuwa = market

Together a kasuwa is usually translated as “at the market” or “in the market”.

In this sentence, English prefers “at the market”:

Sabuwar rigar ta yi tsada sosai a kasuwa.
→ The new dress was very expensive *at the market.*

If you wanted to stress more literally “inside” (physically inside the market space), you could say:

a cikin kasuwa – inside the market

But for pricing context, a kasuwa is perfectly natural: “at the market (in terms of market price)”.

How would I say “The new dress was very cheap at the market” using the same pattern?

Keep the structure and just change the quality word:

arha = cheapness / cheap

So:

Sabuwar rigar ta yi arha sosai a kasuwa.
– The new dress was very cheap at the market.

Pattern:

Sabuwar rigar – the new dress
ta yi arha – it was / became cheap
sosai – very
a kasuwa – at the market

How would I turn this sentence into a yes/no question: “Was the new dress very expensive at the market?”

In Hausa, a simple way to form a yes/no question is to keep the sentence order and use question intonation, or add a particle like “ne?”/“ce?” or “ko?” in some contexts.

A natural version:

Sabuwar rigar ta yi tsada sosai a kasuwa?
– Said with rising intonation.

Or more explicitly:

Sabuwar rigar ta yi tsada sosai a kasuwa ne?
– Literally: Was it (indeed) that the new dress was very expensive at the market?

Both can work as “Was the new dress very expensive at the market?” in context; the second is often a bit more explicitly interrogative.