Yanzu kowa yana jin daidai.

to be

Breakdown of Yanzu kowa yana jin daidai.

• yanzu: now
• ji: to feel
• kowa: everyone

Questions & Answers about Yanzu kowa yana jin daidai.

What does each word in Yanzu kowa yana jin daidai literally mean?

Broken down word by word:

• yanzu – now, at this moment
• kowa – everyone, everybody (literally “every person”)
• yana – he is / it is (doing something); 3rd person singular masculine, imperfective/progressive marker
• jin – from the verb ji, which means to hear, to feel, to sense, to experience; jin is a form used before an object
• daidai – okay, fine, alright here; it can also mean equal, correct, exact in other contexts

So the structure is something like: Now everyone is feeling okay.

Why is it yana and not suna, since kowa means “everyone” (more than one person)?

In Hausa, kowa (everyone) is grammatically singular, even though it refers to many people in meaning.

• kowa yana… – literally “everyone (he) is …”
• suna is used with a clearly plural subject, e.g. mutane suna… “people are …”, su suna… “they are …”

So:

• Kowa yana jin daidai. – Everyone feels okay. (correct, and natural)
• Kowa suna jin daidai. – ungrammatical in standard Hausa

Treat kowa as singular for verb agreement.