Questions & Answers about Musa ya fito daga gida yanzu.
In this sentence, ya is the 3rd person singular masculine subject pronoun (roughly “he”).
In Hausa, a finite verb almost always needs a short subject pronoun in front of it, even if the subject (like Musa) is already mentioned.
So:
- Musa ya fito = literally “Musa, he came out.”
- ya agrees with Musa (masculine, singular) and also carries tense/aspect information (here: completed action).
You cannot normally say:
- ✗ *Musa fito daga gida yanzu
That would be ungrammatical. You must say:
- ✓ Musa ya fito daga gida yanzu.
Ya fito is the perfective form of the verb — it describes a completed event.
Depending on context, English might translate it as:
- Musa came out of the house.
- Musa has come out of the house.
- With yanzu, often: Musa has just come out of the house.
Hausa does not distinguish between simple past and present perfect the way English does. Ya fito just says that the action is done; context decides whether you say “came out” or “has come out” in English.
For contrast:
- Musa yana fitowa daga gida yanzu.
= “Musa is coming out of the house now.” (ongoing / in progress)
Both fita and fito are related to the idea of “going out / coming out,” and you will hear both in real speech.
Roughly:
- ya fita – “he went out, he left (the house)”
- ya fito – “he came out / emerged (often into view, often toward where we are)”
In this sentence:
- Musa ya fito daga gida yanzu. – natural, often understood as “Musa has just come out (to where we are) from the house now.”
- Musa ya fita daga gida yanzu. – also possible, and can sound more like “Musa has just gone out / left the house.”
In everyday conversation many speakers use them quite loosely, so at beginner level you can treat them as near-synonyms here.
Daga is a preposition meaning “from” (place, time, or source).
- gida = “house, home”
- daga gida = “from (the) house / from home”
So ya fito daga gida literally = “he came out from the house.”
Without daga, the meaning changes or becomes unnatural. For example:
- ✗ Musa ya fito gida yanzu. – Not a normal way to say “Musa came out of the house now.”
You can also make it more explicit:
- Musa ya fito daga cikin gida yanzu.
= “Musa came out from inside the house now.”
Yanzu means “now” (and with a perfective often “just now”).
In Hausa, time expressions like yanzu are fairly flexible. All of these are acceptable:
- Musa ya fito daga gida yanzu.
- Yanzu Musa ya fito daga gida.
- Musa yanzu ya fito daga gida.
They all mean essentially the same thing. Different positions can slightly affect emphasis (e.g. putting yanzu first emphasizes the time more), but for normal everyday use, treat them as interchangeable word orders.
In combination with a perfective verb like ya fito, yanzu is usually understood as:
- “just now / a moment ago / right now (just happened)”
So Musa ya fito daga gida yanzu is naturally taken as:
- “Musa has just come out of the house.”
(very recent past)
If you wanted a clear present ongoing meaning (“is coming out now”) you would normally use the progressive:
- Musa yana fitowa daga gida yanzu.
= “Musa is coming out of the house now.”
You change the subject pronoun to agree with the new subject.
Masculine singular (original):
Musa ya fito daga gida yanzu. – “Musa has just come out of the house.”Feminine singular:
Lami ta fito daga gida yanzu. – “Lami has just come out of the house.”
(ta = she)1st person singular:
Na fito daga gida yanzu. – “I have just come out of the house.”2nd person singular (to a man):
Ka fito daga gida yanzu. – “You have just come out of the house.”2nd person singular (to a woman):
Kin fito daga gida yanzu. – “You (fem.) have just come out of the house.”1st person plural:
Mun fito daga gida yanzu. – “We have just come out of the house.”2nd person plural:
Kun fito daga gida yanzu. – “You (pl.) have just come out of the house.”3rd person plural:
Sun fito daga gida yanzu. – “They have just come out of the house.”
Basic subject pronoun set (perfective):
- na, ka, kin, ya, ta, mun, kun, sun
Hausa does not have separate words for “a” or “the” like English does. Often, a bare noun can mean either:
- gida = “house, a house, the house, home” (depending on context)
To make a noun clearly definite, Hausa often adds a definite suffix:
- gida → gidan = “the house / that specific house”
In our sentence, daga gida is naturally understood as:
- “from (the) house / from home”
If you want to stress a particular house, you could say:
- Musa ya fito daga gidan yanzu. – “Musa has just come out of the house (that house we’re talking about).”
Or use demonstratives:
- Musa ya fito daga wannan gidan yanzu. – “Musa has just come out of this house now.”
- Musa ya fito daga wancan gidan yanzu. – “Musa has just come out of that house (over there) now.”
To negate a perfective sentence like Musa ya fito, Hausa uses ba…ba and changes the pronoun form:
- Musa bai fito daga gida ba.
= “Musa has not come out of the house.”
To add “yet”:
- Musa bai fito daga gida ba tukuna.
(tukuna = “yet / still” in this sense)
Pattern (3rd person masc.):
- Positive: ya fito – “he has come out / he came out”
- Negative: bai fito ba – “he has not come out / he did not come out”
The wording can stay almost the same. Hausa often marks yes/no questions with intonation and sometimes with particles like ne or ko.
Common options:
Musa ya fito daga gida yanzu?
– Just raise your voice at the end. Context tells it’s a question.Musa ya fito daga gida yanzu ne?
– Adding ne often sounds like checking or confirming:
“So Musa has come out of the house now?”Ko Musa ya fito daga gida yanzu?
– ko here is a question particle, roughly “Has Musa come out of the house now (or not)?”
All three can work; the most natural in everyday speech is often just:
- Musa ya fito daga gida yanzu? (with questioning intonation).