Learn Hardcore Hausa: Da dare sanyi ya fi zafi a gidanmu. - At night it is more cold than hot in our house.

At the beginning (Da dare …) → emphasizes when this is true.
After a gidanmu (… a gidanmu da dare) → emphasizes where first, then when.

In normal speech, starting with da dare sounds very natural when you’re setting the scene in time.

What are sanyi and zafi here – adjectives or nouns?

In Hausa, sanyi and zafi are nouns, even though in English we’d usually use adjectives like “cold” and “hot.”

sanyi – cold, coldness, cold weather
zafi – heat, hotness, hot weather

Hausa often talks about weather and temperature using nouns:

akwai sanyi – there is cold / it’s cold
akwai zafi – there is heat / it’s hot

In this sentence you literally have:

sanyi = “the cold”
zafi = “the heat / hotness”

And the structure sanyi ya fi zafi is literally “cold surpasses heat.” That’s how Hausa expresses “it’s colder than it is hot.”

What does ya do in sanyi ya fi zafi? Why is it needed?

Ya is a subject pronoun (verbal pronoun): third person masculine singular (“he/it”).

In sanyi ya fi zafi:

sanyi is the subject (“cold”).
ya is the pronoun agreeing with sanyi.
fi is the comparison verb (“to surpass / to be more than”).

So the structure is:

sanyi (cold) ya (it) fi (surpasses) zafi (heat)

You cannot drop ya; you can’t say ✗ sanyi fi zafi. Hausa clauses with verbs normally require this kind of verbal pronoun before the verb, agreeing with the subject in person, number, and (sometimes) gender.

A few parallel examples:

Ali ya fi Bala tsawo. – Ali is taller than Bala.
Ruwa ya fi shayi sanyi. – Water is colder than tea.

How does the comparative fi work in Hausa, exactly?

The basic comparative pattern with fi is:

X (subject) + verbal pronoun + fi + Y (thing compared to)

It literally means “X surpasses Y (in some quality).”

In your sentence:

sanyi ya fi zafi
– “cold surpasses heat” → “it’s colder than it is hot”

Some more examples:

Wannan gida ya fi wancan girma.
This house is bigger than that one.
Inji ɗin nan ya fi wancan ƙarfi.
This machine is stronger than that one.
Hausa ta fi Turanci wahala gare ni.
Hausa is harder than English for me.

The quality you’re comparing can be:

Explicit: Ali ya fi Bala tsawo (“Ali surpasses Bala in height”).
Or understood from context: sanyi ya fi zafi (we understand “in intensity / in dominance”).

Why is the pronoun ya masculine? Is sanyi masculine?

Yes. In Hausa, nouns are grammatically masculine or feminine, and the verbal pronoun agrees with that.

sanyi is treated as masculine, so you use ya (3rd person masculine singular).
If the subject were feminine, you’d use ta.

For example:

motar nan ta fi waccan kyau.
This car is more beautiful than that one.
(mota is feminine → ta)

So in sanyi ya fi zafi, ya agrees with sanyi being masculine.

What does a gidanmu mean, and why do we need a?

A gidanmu means “at our house / in our house.”

Breakdown:

a – preposition “in / at / on” (location)
gida – house, home
-n – linker (joins gida to what follows) → gidan
-mu – “our” (1st person plural possessive)

So:

gidanmu = “our house/home”
a gidanmu = “at our house / in our house”

You need a to express the location. Without a, gidanmu by itself just means “our house,” not “at our house.”

Compare:

Ina gidanmu. – I am at our house.
Ina a gidanmu. – Also possible in some contexts, but Ina gidanmu is more typical here because ina already implies a location.
Da dare sanyi ya fi zafi a gidanmu. – At night it’s colder than hot at our house.

Could I say gida na instead of gidanmu to mean “my house”? How would that change the sentence?

Yes. To say “my house,” you could use gidana or gida na, depending on style and emphasis.

gidana – my house/home (one word: gida
- -na)
gida na – also “my house,” with the possessive as a separate word; often a bit more emphatic or careful.

So you could say:

Da dare sanyi ya fi zafi a gidana.
At night it’s colder than hot at my house.

Meaning is the same, just changing whose house it is. The rest of the grammar stays the same.

Could this also mean “it’s usually colder than hot at our house at night”? How do you show “usually” or habit?

As written:

Da dare sanyi ya fi zafi a gidanmu.

This can describe a general fact or tendency; context can make it sound habitual (“At night, it tends to be colder than hot at our house”), especially when talking about weather.

To explicitly mark habitual or “usually”, Hausa often uses kan:

Da dare sanyi ya kan fi zafi a gidanmu.
At night, it usually is colder than hot at our house.

Here:

ya kan fi = “it usually surpasses / is usually more than”

So:

ya fi – simple statement of comparison (often present/general).
ya kan fi – “usually/typically is more than.”

There is no separate word for “is” in the sentence. How is “is” expressed here?

Hausa doesn’t use a separate verb “to be” like English does in this structure.

Instead, the comparative verb fi plus the verbal pronoun ya carry the meaning that English expresses with “is …-er than”:

sanyi ya fi zafi
literally: “cold it-surpasses heat”
functionally: “(it) is colder than (it is) hot”

So:

No separate word like “is.”
The idea of “is more X than Y” is built into the pattern X + ya + fi + Y.

Is it ever written yafi instead of ya fi? Which is correct?

You’ll often see it written together as yafi in informal writing, texting, or on social media. However, in careful or standard writing, it’s better to separate them:

Correct / standard: ya fi
Informal / common: yafi

Grammatically, ya and fi are two separate words:

ya – verbal pronoun
fi – comparative verb

So for learning and for formal contexts, you should treat and write them as separate words: ya fi.