Learn Hardcore Hausa: A gida muna da yara uku. - At home we have three children.

A gida… = “As for at home, … / At home, …” (location is the starting point)
Muna da… a gida. = starts with “we have…”, then adds the location at the end.

What exactly does muna da mean, and how does Hausa express “to have”?

Hausa does not usually use a simple verb that directly means “to have.” Instead, it uses a construction literally meaning “we are with X”:

mu = we
na = marker often glossed as progressive/continuous “be (doing)”
mu na → written together as muna = “we are (in the state of)”
da = “with”, and in this structure it carries the sense of “possessing, having.”

So:

Muna da yara uku.
Literally: “We are with three children.”
Idiomatic English: “We have three children.”

This same pattern works for other persons:

Ina da yara uku. – I have three children.
Kana da mota. – You (m.sg.) have a car.
Suna da gida. – They have a house.

What is the role of -na in muna, and can it be written separately?

Muna comes from mu + na:

mu = we
na = aspect particle (often called “present/progressive” or “continuous”)

So mu na literally means “we (are) [doing/being]”, and in writing it is very often fused into muna.

In this particular type of sentence:

muna da = “we have”

You may see mu na written separately in some texts (especially older or more didactic ones), but in modern standard Hausa:

muna (together) is the normal spelling.

Functionally, mu na and muna are the same here.

Could this sentence also be “Munada yara uku” as one word?

No. While muna is normally written as a single word, da stays separate:

✅ muna da
❌ munada

So the correct forms are:

A gida muna da yara uku.
Or without the initial phrase: Muna da yara uku.

Writing munada as one word is not standard and should be avoided.

Why is the noun yara before the number uku? In English we say “three children”, but here it’s “children three”.

In Hausa, cardinal numbers normally follow the noun they count:

yaro daya – one child / one boy
yara biyu – two children
yara uku – three children
mutane goma – ten people

So the pattern is generally:

NOUN + NUMBER

That is why the sentence has yara uku, literally “children three”, which corresponds to English “three children.”

What is the difference between yaro / yara and ’ya’ya? Could we say ’ya’ya uku here?

yaro = child / boy (often boy, but commonly used for “child” in general)
yara = children, kids (plural of yaro)
’ya’ya = offspring, children in the sense of one’s own sons and daughters (emphasizes parent–child relationship).

So:

Muna da yara uku.
= We have three children (neutral, “we have three kids,” could also just be “we are with three children [present]”).
Muna da ’ya’ya uku.
= More clearly we have three (own) children / we have three offspring – strongly suggests they are our own kids by birth.

In many everyday contexts where parents talk about their own children, both yara uku and ’ya’ya uku can appear, but ’ya’ya uku is more explicitly “our children (that we begot)”.

Does A gida mean specifically “at my house” / “at our house”, or just generally “at home / in the house”?

A gida by itself is general:

a gida = in the house / at home (no specific possessor encoded)

If you want to specify whose house/home, Hausa usually adds a possessive pronoun to gida:

a gidana – at my house, in my home
a gidanka – at your (m.sg.) house
a gidanku – at your (pl.) house
a gidansu – at their house

So:

A gida muna da yara uku.
= At home we have three children. (context will often make it clear it’s our home)
A gidana ina da yara uku.
= At my house I have three children / In my home I have three children.

Is a always translated as “in/at”? When would I use a cikin gida instead of a gida?

a is a general locative preposition, often translated as “in, at, on” depending on context.

a gida = at home, in the house (quite general)
a ofis = at the office
a kasuwa = at the market

cikin means “inside (the inside of)”, so:

a cikin gida = inside the house (on the inside)

Subtle difference:

A gida muna da yara uku.
= At home we have three children. (location is “home” as a place)
A cikin gida muna da yara uku.
= Inside the house we have three children. (emphasizes they are inside, not outside in the yard, for example)

Both can be correct depending on what you want to emphasize.

How would I make this sentence negative, like “At home, we don’t have any children”?

Negation with da in possession typically uses ba … da … ba with subject agreement:

Ba mu da yara. – We don’t have children.

If you want to keep the “at home” phrase in front:

A gida ba mu da yara.
= At home, we don’t have children.

With full closing ba at the end (often heard in speech and seen in writing):

A gida ba mu da yara ba.

You can also add ko daya (“even one”) to stress “not even one”:

A gida ba mu da ko yaro daya.
= At home we don’t have even one child.

Can the word order be changed to Muna da yara uku a gida or Muna da yara uku a gida ne? What changes in meaning?

Yes, both are possible, with slight differences in emphasis.

Muna da yara uku a gida.
- Perfectly grammatical.
- Neutral statement: “We have three children at home.”
- Starts with the subject and possession (“we have…”), then adds location.
Muna da yara uku a gida ne.
- The ne is a focus/confirmation particle (copular element).
- Roughly: “It is at home that we have three children” or “We have three children at home (as opposed to somewhere else).”
- Used when contrasting, clarifying, or emphasizing where the three children are.
A gida muna da yara uku. (original)
- Fronts a gida for topic/emphasis: “At home, we have three children.”

So all three are grammatical; the choice is about what you want to highlight: the place, the fact of having them, or contrastive focus on the place.

How would I say “We have three children at home now”, adding the idea of “now / currently”?

You can simply add yanzu (“now”) or a halin yanzu (“at the present time”):

A gida yanzu muna da yara uku.
= At home now we have three children.

or:

Yanzu muna da yara uku a gida.
= Now we have three children at home.
A halin yanzu muna da yara uku a gida.
= At the present time, we have three children at home.

The basic structure muna da yara uku stays the same; you just insert a time expression like yanzu.