Learn Hardcore Hausa: Wani abokina yana aiki tare da likita a asibiti. - A certain friend of mine works together with a doctor at the hospital.

Wani abokina ≈ a certain friend of mine / one of my friends
Abokina alone ≈ my friend (could sound like a more “default” or well‑known friend)

You can grammatically say:

Abokina yana aiki tare da likita a asibiti.

This would simply mean “My friend works with a doctor at a hospital” without highlighting that he is just one of several friends. The sentence is still correct; you just lose that nuance of “one (of them).”

Why is abokina written as one word instead of aboki na?

Hausa often attaches possessive pronouns as suffixes to nouns.

aboki = friend
-na = my

Together they become:

abokina = my friend

You can also separate them:

aboki na = my friend (same meaning, sometimes a bit more emphatic or careful speech)

Both abokina and aboki na are correct; the combined form is very common in everyday speech and writing.

Does yana already include “he”, or do I need to say shi as well?

Yana already encodes “he is (doing)”:

ya = he (3rd person singular masculine)
-na (in this context) = progressive marker (“be doing”)

So yana ≈ he is (doing).

In the sentence:

Wani abokina yana aiki…

Wani abokina is the subject noun phrase (“a certain friend of mine”), and yana is the verb phrase head (“is working”). You do not need an extra shi:

✗ Wani abokina shi yana aiki… (feels redundant/awkward)
✓ Wani abokina yana aiki…

What tense or aspect is yana aiki? Is it “he works” or “he is working”?

Yana aiki is the progressive / continuous aspect, and it can cover both:

“He is working” (right now / currently)
“He works” (as his regular job – present habitual)

The exact meaning depends on context. In many neutral contexts about jobs, yana aiki naturally reads as “he works (there / in that profession)” rather than emphasizing this very moment.

Why is it yana aiki and not yana yi aiki or yana yin aiki?

The verb for to do is yi, and yi aiki literally means “do work” → work.

The fully “spelled‑out” progressive structure would be:

yana yin aiki = he is doing work / he is working

In everyday speech, there is a strong tendency to drop yin in this common combination, giving:

yana aiki

So:

yana yin aiki and yana aiki are both correct.
yana aiki is shorter and very common, especially with frequent collocations like yi aiki (“to work”).

What does tare da mean exactly, and how is it different from just da?

da = with, and, by (very general preposition/conjunction)
tare da = together with, in company with

In this sentence:

yana aiki tare da likita ≈ he works together with a doctor / he works with a doctor (as a colleague/partner).

You often use tare da when you want to emphasize cooperation, companionship, doing something side by side.

Using only da:

yana aiki da likita

is still understandable as “he works with a doctor”, but tare da makes the teamwork/being alongside more explicit.

Does likita mean “doctor” in general, or specifically a medical doctor?

In modern Hausa, likita almost always means a medical doctor (physician).

Other uses of doctor in English, such as:

a PhD doctor (Doctor of Philosophy), or
a doctor in a non‑medical sense,

are usually not translated with likita. For those, speakers might use other expressions or titles depending on context (e.g. dokta as a borrowed title).

What does a do in a asibiti, and does it mean “at” or “in”?

a is a very common locative preposition, usually translated as “in, at, on” depending on context.

a gida = at home / in the house
a kasuwa = at the market
a asibiti = at the hospital / in the hospital

English makes a stronger distinction between in and at; Hausa a is more flexible. Here, both at a hospital and in a hospital are good translations, with “at a hospital” sounding more natural in English for work.

Why is there no word for “a/the” before likita and asibiti? How does definiteness work here?

Hausa does not have separate words like English “a, an, the”. Instead, definiteness is shown mainly by:

context,
position,
sometimes pronouns, demonstratives, or tone (in speech).

So:

likita can mean “a doctor” or “the doctor”
asibiti can mean “a hospital” or “the hospital”

In yanaa aiki tare da likita a asibiti, neutral translation is:

“works with a doctor at a hospital.”

If you wanted to make them clearly definite, you might add ɗin / ɗin nan / nan or a demonstrative, e.g.:

yake aiki tare da likitan nan a asibitin nan
→ he works with this doctor at this hospital

How would this sentence change if the friend is female?

You need to change both wani and abokina to their feminine forms:

wani (masc.) → wata (fem.)
aboki (friend, usually masc./generic) → abokiya (female friend)
abokiyata = my (female) friend

So you would say:

Wata abokiyata tana aiki tare da likita a asibiti.
→ A certain (female) friend of mine works with a doctor at a hospital.

Note that yana (he is) changes to tana (she is) to agree with the feminine subject:

yana aiki (he works / is working)
tana aiki (she works / is working)

How would I say “Some of my friends work with doctors at hospitals” using this pattern?

You need plurals and plural agreement:

wasu = some (plural)
aboki → abokai (friends)
abokaina = my friends
suna aiki = they work / are working
likita → likitoci (doctors)
asibiti → asibitoci (hospitals)

A good sentence:

Wasu abokaina suna aiki tare da likitoci a asibitoci.
→ Some of my friends work with doctors at hospitals.

Can I move a asibiti earlier in the sentence, or does Hausa word order have to be like this?

Basic neutral order in Hausa is:

Subject – Aspect/Tense – Verb – Objects – Other phrases (place, time, etc.)

So:

Wani abokina (subject)
yana (aspect/auxiliary)
aiki (verb complement)
tare da likita (prepositional phrase)
a asibiti (locative phrase)

You can sometimes move a asibiti for emphasis or in special contexts, for example:

A asibiti wani abokina yana aiki tare da likita.

This sounds more like:

At the hospital, a certain friend of mine works with a doctor.

It’s still correct, but it now emphasizes the location (“as for at the hospital…”). The original order is the most neutral and common.

Is asibiti related to the English word “hospital”?

Yes, asibiti is historically a loanword ultimately related to “hospital” (through earlier contact and adaptation). The pronunciation and form have been reshaped to fit Hausa sound patterns:

hospital → asibiti

For learning purposes, you can safely remember asibiti = hospital.