Yara suna koya yadda za su zaɓi abokai masu kyau.

to be

Breakdown of Yara suna koya yadda za su zaɓi abokai masu kyau.

• yaro: the child
• aboki: the friend
• su: they

Questions & Answers about Yara suna koya yadda za su zaɓi abokai masu kyau.

What does suna do here? Why not just say Yara koya yadda za su zaɓi…?

In Hausa you normally cannot attach a verb directly to a noun subject. You need a subject pronoun + aspect marker before the verb.

• su = they
• na = present/progressive aspect
• su + na → suna

So Yara suna koya… literally is “Children they-are learning…”, which is how Hausa marks “The children are learning…”.

If you say Yara koya… without suna, it is ungrammatical in standard Hausa. The pattern is:

• Yaro yana karatu. – The boy is studying.
• Yara suna karatu. – The children are studying.

The same pattern is used in your sentence with koya.

Why do we have both suna and za su in the same sentence? Isn’t that mixing tenses?

They belong to two different clauses:

• Main clause: Yara suna koya… – The children are learning… (present/progressive)
• Subordinate clause: …yadda za su zaɓi abokai masu kyau. – …how they will choose good friends. (future)

So the full idea is: “The children are (now) learning how they will choose good friends (in the future).”

Using suna for the main action and za su inside the “how”-clause is completely normal in Hausa.

What exactly does koya mean here? Doesn’t koya also mean “to teach”?