Learn Hardcore Hausa: Musa wanda yake karatu a makaranta yana karanta littafi mai kyau. - Musa who is studying at school is reading a good book.

In the sentence “Musa wanda yake karatu a makaranta yana karanta littafi mai kyau.”, which part is the main sentence and which part is extra information about Musa?

The structure is:

Main clause:
Musa … yana karanta littafi mai kyau.
→ Musa is reading a good book.
Extra information (relative clause) describing Musa:
wanda yake karatu a makaranta
→ who studies / is studying at school.

So you can think of it as:

Musa [who studies at school] is reading a good book.

What does “wanda” mean, and why is it used here?

Wanda is a relative pronoun meaning roughly “who / that / which” for masculine singular nouns.

Musa wanda yake karatu a makaranta…
→ Musa, *who studies at school…*

Hausa has different forms of this word depending on gender and number:

wanda – who/that (masculine singular)
wadda – who/that (feminine singular)
waɗanda – who/that (plural, any gender)

Because Musa is grammatically masculine singular, wanda is the correct form here.

Why do we have both “yake” and “yana” in the same sentence? Don’t they both mean “is”?

Both yake and yana contain ya, which is the 3rd person masculine singular pronoun (he), plus an aspect marker:

ya + ke → yake
ya + na → yana

They both express something like “he is …”, but they are used in different environments:

yake is used here inside a relative clause:
- wanda yake karatu a makaranta
  → who is studying / who studies at school
yana is used in the main clause for the progressive (ongoing action):
- yana karanta littafi mai kyau
  → he is reading a good book

So roughly:

yake → “is (the one who) …” inside “who/that …” clauses
yana → “is …-ing” in a normal main sentence

That’s why the same sentence can have both: one for the relative clause, one for the main action.

What is the difference between “karatu” and “karanta” here?

They are related but not the same:

karanta = verb, to read
- yana karanta littafi → he is reading a book
karatu = verbal noun / noun, often reading, study, education
- yake karatu a makaranta → he studies / is studying at school
  (literally: he is in “study” at school)

So in this sentence:

yake karatu uses karatu like “studies / schooling”
yana karanta uses karanta for the actual action of reading a particular book

What does “a” in “a makaranta” mean? Is it “in” or “at”?

a is a preposition that usually means “in / at / on” depending on context. It marks location in a very general way.

a makaranta → at school / in school
a gida → at home / in the house
a kasuwa → at the market

If you want to emphasise inside something physically, you might also see cikin, but a is the common, simple way to say “at / in” a place.

What does “mai kyau” literally mean, and how does it give the meaning “good” in “littafi mai kyau”?

Literally:

mai = “one who has / possessor of …”
kyau = “beauty, goodness, niceness”

So mai kyau is literally “having goodness / possessing beauty”.

When it comes after a noun, it works like an adjective:

littafi mai kyau → a book that has goodness → a good book
mota mai kyau → a good car
gida mai kyau → a nice house

This mai + noun pattern is very common in Hausa for describing properties.

Why is there no separate word for “who is” or “is” like in English “Musa, who is studying at school, is reading…”?

Hausa doesn’t use a separate verb exactly like English “is” for these cases. Instead, it combines:

a subject pronoun (here ya, “he”), and
an aspect marker (here ke or na)

to give the sense of “is …-ing / is (the one who) …”.

So:

wanda yake karatu
→ literally: who he‑ke study
→ who is studying / who studies
yana karanta littafi
→ literally: he‑na read book
→ he is reading a book

The “is” meaning is already built into yake and yana, so Hausa doesn’t add a separate “is” word.

Can we change the word order, for example by moving “a makaranta”, or leave out the relative clause?

You have some flexibility:

Leaving out the relative clause
If the extra information is not important, you can say just:
- Musa yana karanta littafi mai kyau.
  → Musa is reading a good book.
Moving the place phrase
You could say:
- Musa yana karanta littafi mai kyau a makaranta.
  → Musa is reading a good book at school.

This changes the focus slightly (now the reading at school is foregrounded), but it is grammatical.

However, inside the relative clause itself, the basic order yake karatu a makaranta is normal and should be kept.

Why do we still see “ya” (inside yake and yana) when we already have the noun “Musa”? Can we drop it?

In Hausa, the subject pronoun is normally required in verb phrases, even if a full noun subject is already mentioned.

So:

Musa yana karanta littafi…
not ✗ Musa na karanta littafi… (without ya)

The ya in yake and yana agrees with Musa:

Musa → ya (he) → yake, yana
The same pattern appears after wanda:
wanda yake karatu = who he‑is studying.

You cannot drop the ya; it’s part of the normal verb structure.

How would the sentence change if we were talking about a woman instead of Musa?

For a female subject, you must change both the relative pronoun and the subject pronouns inside the verbs.

Example with Mariya:

Mariya wadda take karatu a makaranta tana karanta littafi mai kyau.

Changes:

wanda → wadda
- wadda is the feminine singular form of “who/that”.
yake → take
- ta = she → ta + ke → take
yana → tana
- ta + na → tana

So the pattern of agreement is:

Musa → wanda yake … yana …
Mariya → wadda take … tana …

Where is the English article “a” in “a good book”? Do we need “wani” in “littafi mai kyau”?

Hausa does not have fixed articles like English “a / the”. Often:

littafi can mean “a book” or “the book” depending on context.
littafi mai kyau → a good book or the good book.

You can add wani before a noun to emphasise “a certain / some / one (particular)”:

Musa yana karanta wani littafi mai kyau.
→ Musa is reading a (certain) good book.

But wani is optional here. The original “littafi mai kyau” is already a natural way to say “a good book” in Hausa.