Learn Hardcore Hausa: ɗan sanda ya tsayar da motar kasuwa a gefe na titi. - The police officer stopped the market car at the side of the road.

It is routinely used for “policeman / police officer” in general conversation.
For a specifically female officer, you may also hear ’yar sanda (literally “daughter/person of the stick”).
Even though the literal meaning is “son/child of stick”, learners should just remember it as the standard word for a police officer.

What is ya doing in ɗan sanda ya tsayar da…? Is it “he”, or is it a tense marker?

ya here is both: it is a short subject pronoun that also marks the perfective aspect (usually translated as a simple past).

Structure:

ɗan sanda = “the policeman” (full noun phrase subject)
ya tsayar da… = “he stopped…”

In Hausa, even when you have a full noun subject (ɗan sanda), you still normally use the short pronoun before the verb:

ɗan sanda ya tsayar da… = “the policeman, he stopped…”

So:

ya agrees with the subject (3rd person singular, masculine).
It also tells you the aspect (perfective, often past).

You cannot just say ɗan sanda tsayar da motar kasuwa… – you need ya in there.

What is the difference between tsaya, ya tsaya, and ya tsayar da?

These are closely related but not the same:

tsaya (verb root) = to stop / stand (intransitive: the subject itself stops).
- ya tsaya = “he stopped / he stood (himself)”
- Example: Motar ta tsaya. = “The car stopped.” (by itself)
tsayar da = to make something/someone stop (causative: someone causes something else to stop).
- ya tsayar da motar = “he stopped the car” (he caused it to stop)

In your sentence:

ɗan sanda ya tsayar da motar kasuwa… = “The policeman stopped the commercial vehicle…”
- The policeman is the agent,
- The motar kasuwa is what he causes to stop.

So:

ya tsaya = “he himself stopped (moving)”
ya tsayar da (wani abu) = “he stopped (something/someone)”.

What is da doing in tsayar da? I thought da means “and / with”?

You’re right that da very often means “and” or “with”, but in Hausa it also appears in a number of fixed verb constructions.

With tsaya:

tsaya = to stand / stop (intransitive)
tsayar da = to cause to stop (transitive / causative)

Here, da is not really “and/with” in the normal sense. It’s part of a verb pattern that turns tsaya into a causative verb:

Motar ta tsaya. = “The car stopped / stood still.”
Ya tsayar da motar. = “He stopped the car.”

So when you see tsayar da in a sentence like this, it is best to learn it as one verbal unit meaning “to stop (something)”.

Why is it motar kasuwa and not just mota kasuwa? What does motar kasuwa really mean?

mota by itself simply means “car, vehicle”.

In motar kasuwa:

mota = car
-r = a linking consonant showing a genitive / “of” relationship (feminine singular)
kasuwa = market

So motar kasuwa literally means “car of market”, i.e. a market car. In real usage, it means a commercial / public transport vehicle (like a bus, minibus, shared taxi).

The change from mota → motar happens because:

Feminine nouns ending in -a often take -r or -ar when they are followed by another noun in a genitive phrase.

So:

mota (car) → motar kasuwa (car of the market → commercial vehicle).

You should hear motar kasuwa as something like “public transport vehicle” or “commercial car”, not just any private car.

How does the possessive/genitive construction work in motar kasuwa and gefe na titi?

Both motar kasuwa and gefe na titi are genitive (“of”) constructions, but they use different forms.

motar kasuwa
- mota (fem.) + -r (genitive linker) + kasuwa
- Literally: “car-of market”
- Pattern: feminine noun ending in -a often becomes -ar / -r when linking to another noun.
gefe na titi
- gefe = side, edge
- na = genitive marker “of” (for masculine/neutral nouns)
- titi = road
- Literally: “side that is of road” → “the side of the road”

So:

Hausa can show “of” with:
- A linking consonant attached to the first noun (motar kasuwa, gefen titi).
- A separate word like na or ta between the two nouns (gefe na titi).

Both methods are common and often interchangeable, depending on the noun and on style.

Could you replace a gefe na titi with something like a gefen titi? Are they the same?

Yes, in many contexts a gefe na titi and a gefen titi are very close in meaning, and both can be understood as “at the side of the road” / “by the roadside”.

a gefe na titi
- a = at / in / on (general locative preposition)
- gefe = side
- na = of
- titi = road
a gefen titi
- a = at
- gefe
  - -n = gefen (“side-of”)
- titi = road

So structurally:

gefe na titi = “side that is of road”
gefen titi = “side-of road”

In everyday speech, both are natural. Local preference can vary, and some speakers may use one form more often, but for a learner they are effectively equivalent in this kind of sentence.

Why is there no word for “the” in this Hausa sentence?

Hausa does not have separate words that correspond directly to English “the” or “a/an”.

Definiteness and specificity are usually shown by:

Context: what has been mentioned or is known
Word order / focus
Genitive/possessive constructions
Sometimes demonstratives like wannan (this), wancan (that)

In your sentence:

ɗan sanda → understood as “the policeman” (not just “a policeman”) from context.
motar kasuwa → the form itself (with genitive) tends to sound more specific, so we translate it as “the commercial vehicle”.
a gefe na titi → “at the side of the road”, again context makes it specific.

So even though there is no separate word for “the”, Hausa speakers would naturally understand and translate this as “The policeman stopped the commercial vehicle at the side of the road.”

What is the basic word order in this sentence? Could you move the parts around?

The basic word order of Hausa is SVO (Subject–Verb–Object), plus other phrases afterwards.

Your sentence follows this pattern:

Subject: ɗan sanda
Verb complex: ya tsayar da
Object: motar kasuwa
Locative phrase: a gefe na titi

So in English order: Subject – Verb – Object – Place
→ “The policeman stopped the commercial vehicle at the side of the road.”

You can move parts around only for focus or emphasis, usually with extra changes, for example:

Motar kasuwa ɗan sanda ya tsayar da ita a gefe na titi.
- Literally: “The commercial vehicle, the policeman stopped it at the side of the road.”
- This strongly emphasizes motar kasuwa.
- Notice the added pronoun ita (it) after the verb to keep the object inside the verb phrase.

For a learner, it’s safest to stick to the straight SVO order you see in the original sentence.

How do you pronounce ɗan sanda and tsayar? Those letters look tricky.

There are two especially tricky consonants here: ɗ and ts.

ɗan sanda
- ɗ is a voiced implosive d.
- Native pronunciation: the tongue is in a d position but the airstream is slightly “sucked in” and voiced.
- For learners, it’s usually fine to pronounce it like a regular English d:
  - ɗan sanda ≈ dan sanda (DAHN SAHN-dah).
tsayar
- ts is like the ts in “cats”, but at the beginning of the syllable.
- tsaya ≈ TSAH-yah (two syllables: tsa-ya).
- tsayar ≈ TSAH-yar (the r is lightly tapped, like a quick r in Spanish or Italian).

Putting it together:

ɗan sanda ya tsayar da motar kasuwa a gefe na titi
- Approximate learner pronunciation:
  - dan sanda ya tsayar da motar kasuwa a gefe na titi
  - [dahn SAHN-dah ya TSAH-yar da MOH-tar ka-SU-wa a GE-fe na TEE-tee]

Most speakers will easily understand you even if your ɗ and ts are only approximate, so don’t worry too much at the beginning.

What tense or aspect is expressed by ya tsayar da here? Does it always mean a past action?

ya tsayar da uses the perfective aspect of the verb, marked by ya for 3rd person singular masculine.

In most neutral contexts, the perfective is translated as a simple past in English:

ɗan sanda ya tsayar da motar kasuwa…
→ “The policeman stopped the commercial vehicle…”

However, the Hausa perfective is really about completed action, not strictly “past”. Depending on context, it can sometimes express:

A recently completed action
A sequence of events in narration (“then he stopped the car…”)

For learning purposes, in a sentence like this, you can safely treat ya tsayar da as past simple:

“he stopped (it)”.