Learn Hardcore Hausa: Abinci a kasuwa yana da tsada sosai, don haka ni ina so in dafa abinci a gida. - Food at the market is very expensive, so I want to cook food at home.

Breakdown of Abinci a kasuwa yana da tsada sosai, don haka ni ina so in dafa abinci a gida.

What does “Abinci a kasuwa” mean structurally? Is it “market food” or “food in the market”?

Abinci a kasuwa is literally “food at/in the market” (location).

So this phrase describes where the food is, not what kind of food it is.

If you wanted “market food / food sold at the market” as a type, you’d more likely say:

abincin kasuwa – literally “the food of the market”, i.e. market food / street food

What does “yana da tsada sosai” literally mean, and how does it end up meaning “is very expensive”?

Literally, “yana da tsada sosai” breaks down like this:

So the literal sense is: “it has a lot of expensiveness” → “it is expensive”.

In Hausa, the pattern “X yana da Y” is very common for describing possessed qualities:

Yaro yana da kuɗi. – The boy has money.
Motar nan tana da tsada. – That car is expensive (lit. has expensiveness).
Gidan yana da girma. – The house is big (lit. has bigness).

So “abinci a kasuwa yana da tsada sosai” = “Food at the market is very expensive.”