Breakdown of Malami yana da ɗalibai da yawa a makaranta.
da
to have
a
at
makaranta
the school
malami
the teacher
Questions & Answers about Malami yana da ɗalibai da yawa a makaranta.
What does yana da mean here, and is it literally “is with”?
In this sentence, yana da is the usual way to say “has” in Hausa.
- ya- = third-person masculine subject marker (“he/it”)
- -na = progressive/aspect marker (“is”)
- da = preposition roughly meaning “with”
Literally, malami yana da ɗalibai… is close to “the teacher is with students…”, but the idiomatic meaning is “the teacher has students…”.
So whenever you want to say “X has Y” (especially possession that can change, like money, children, students, etc.), X yana da Y is a very common pattern:
- Yaro yana da littafi. – The boy has a book.
- Gida yana da dakuna uku. – The house has three rooms.
Why is it malami and not something like “the teacher” with a separate word for “the”?