Learn Hardcore Hausa: Yaro yana tsaye a gaban ƙofa. - The boy is standing in front of the door.

yaro – boy (a male child)
yana – he is (3rd person masculine singular progressive marker)
tsaye – standing, upright (verbal adjective from the verb tsaya “to stand/stop”)
a – at / in / on (general locative preposition)
gaban – the front of, in front of (from gaba “front, before” + the linking -n)
ƙofa – door

So the literal structure is roughly: “Boy he‑is standing at front‑of door.”

Why is it yana tsaye and not just a simple verb like in English “stands”?

Hausa usually uses a progressive/aspect marker plus a verbal adjective to talk about ongoing states and actions.

yana is the progressive/aspect form of “he is” for a male subject.
tsaye is the verbal adjective meaning “standing, in a standing position.”

So yana tsaye is like saying “he is in a standing state” → “he is standing.”

If you just used the finite verb tsaya (“to stand, to stop”), you would say:

Yaro ya tsaya a gaban ƙofa. – The boy stood/has stopped in front of the door. (a completed action)

Yaro yana tsaye a gaban ƙofa focuses on the ongoing position (he is standing there now), not the moment he stood up.

Does yaro mean specifically “boy”, or can it just mean “child”?

yaro primarily means “boy, male child.”

In everyday speech, people sometimes use yaro in a more general, slightly looser way (e.g. “kids” when you’re not being precise), but:

yaro – male child / boy
yarinya – female child / girl

So in this sentence, Yaro yana tsaye a gaban ƙofa clearly suggests a male child.

Why do we need yana if we already have yaro? Isn’t that two subjects?

It looks like two subjects to an English speaker, but in Hausa this is normal.

yaro is the full noun (the lexical subject).
yana contains a subject pronoun (he) plus an aspect marker (is [doing]).

In Hausa, the subject pronoun is obligatory in sentences like this, even if you also mention the noun:

Yaro yana tsaye. – The boy is standing.
Yarinya tana tsaye. – The girl is standing. (note: tana for feminine)

You can’t drop yana and just say Yaro tsaye a gaban ƙofa in standard speech; it would sound incomplete or wrong. The normal pattern is: [Subject NP] + [subject pronoun/aspect] + [verb/verbal adjective].

How would the sentence change if we said “The girl is standing in front of the door”?

You would change both the noun and the pronoun to the feminine forms:

Yarinya tana tsaye a gaban ƙofa.

Changes:

yaro → yarinya (boy → girl)
yana → tana (3rd person masculine → 3rd person feminine)

Everything else stays the same.

How do we know it means “the boy” and “the door”, not “a boy” and “a door”? There are no articles.

Hausa generally does not use articles like English “a / an / the.”

yaro by itself can mean “a boy” or “the boy” depending on context.
ƙofa can mean “a door” or “the door.”

Definiteness is understood from context, previous mention, or shared knowledge.
So:

Yaro yana tsaye a gaban ƙofa. can be:
- A boy is standing in front of a door.
- The boy is standing in front of the door.

English forces a choice; Hausa doesn’t, unless it uses other devices (like demonstratives: wannan yaron – this boy).

What exactly does a gaban ƙofa mean, and why isn’t it just one word for “in front of”?

a gaban ƙofa is a prepositional phrase built from separate parts:

a – locative preposition: at, in, on
gaban – the front of / the front part of (from gaba
- -n construct ending)
ƙofa – door

So literally: “at the front‑of door” → “in front of the door.”

Hausa often expresses relational ideas (front of, back of, inside of, etc.) as:

a + [relational noun in construct form] + [thing]
a gaban ƙofa – in front of the door
a bayan gida – behind the house (from baya “back”)
a cikin gida – inside the house (from ciki “inside”)

There isn’t a single preposition that equals “in front of”; instead Hausa uses a locative preposition + relational noun.

What is the role of the -n in gaban? Why not just a gaba ƙofa?

The -n in gaban is a construct linking suffix. It marks that gaba is in a possessed/relational relationship with the following noun:

gaba – “front”
gaba + n + ƙofa → gaban ƙofa – “the front of the door”

Without -n, it would sound ungrammatical or like two separate nouns put side by side.
So a gaban ƙofa is the correct way to say “at the front of the door / in front of the door.”

Is ƙofa pronounced like English “kofa”? What’s the difference between k and ƙ in Hausa?

No, ƙ is not the same as regular k in Hausa.

k – an ordinary voiceless [k] sound (like English k in “cat”).
ƙ – an ejective k, written as ƙ; it’s pronounced with a kind of “popping” sound made by closing the back of the mouth and then releasing it with extra air pressure from the glottis.

Some learners approximate ƙ with a strong, tense k, but Hausa speakers do hear a difference, and in some words k vs ƙ distinguishes meaning.

So ƙofa is not exactly “kofa”; it starts with this ejective ƙ sound.

What is the difference between tsaya and tsaye?

They are related but not the same:

tsaya – the verb “to stand, to stop.”
- Ya tsaya. – He stopped / he stood (up).
tsaye – a verbal adjective / stative form meaning “standing, in a standing position, upright.”
- Yana tsaye. – He is standing (he is in a standing position).

So tsaya focuses on the action/event of standing or stopping, while tsaye focuses on the resulting state/position. That’s why in your sentence (describing his current posture), Hausa uses tsaye with yana.

Can the word order change, or does a gaban ƙofa always come at the end?

In neutral sentences, Hausa typically keeps the order:

Subject – (subject pronoun/aspect) – Verb/Adjective – Place

So Yaro yana tsaye a gaban ƙofa is the most natural neutral order.

You can move the location phrase to the front for emphasis or topicalization:

A gaban ƙofa ne yaro yake tsaye.
Literally: It is in front of the door that the boy is standing. (strong emphasis on in front of the door)

But that uses extra particles like ne and yake and has a marked, emphatic feel.
For a simple description, Yaro yana tsaye a gaban ƙofa is the normal word order.

How would I say “The boy is sitting in front of the door” instead of “standing”?

You replace tsaye (standing) with zaune (sitting):

Yaro yana zaune a gaban ƙofa. – The boy is sitting in front of the door.

Pattern:

yana tsaye – he is standing
yana zaune – he is sitting

Both tsaye and zaune are verbal adjectives used with yana / tana / suna, etc., to describe posture or position.