Learn Hardcore Hausa: A cikin fim ɗin jiya, mun ga yara suna wasa a bakin teku. - In the film yesterday, we saw children playing at the seaside.

a is a general locative preposition: at / in / on.
ciki means inside / interior. Together, a cikin literally means “in the inside of / inside”, and is a very common way to say “in (something)”.

A cikin fim ɗin jiya ≈ In the film yesterday / Inside yesterday’s film.

You can say a fim ɗin jiya and people will understand you, but when talking about the contents of a movie, book, story, etc., a cikin is much more natural.
So:

A cikin fim ɗin jiya, mun ga… = In yesterday’s film, we saw…
A fim ɗin jiya, mun ga… = understandable but less idiomatic in this context.

What exactly does fim ɗin jiya mean, and why is ɗin attached to fim and not to jiya?

fim ɗin jiya literally means something like “the film of yesterday”, i.e. yesterday’s film / the film yesterday.

Breakdown:

fim – film / movie
ɗin – a definite marker, roughly like “the”, attaching to the noun
jiya – yesterday

So fim ɗin jiya ≈ “the film (that was) yesterday” / yesterday’s film.

The definite marker ɗin attaches to the noun it makes definite, here fim. Jiya is just an adverbial time word modifying fim; it doesn’t get the definite marker itself.

You could also see:

fim na jiya – literally “film of yesterday”, another way of saying yesterday’s film.
fim ɗin jiya is very common and natural.

Could the sentence start with Mun ga yara suna wasa… instead of A cikin fim ɗin jiya, mun ga…? Does moving A cikin fim ɗin jiya change the meaning?

Yes, you can change the word order:

Mun ga yara suna wasa a bakin teku a cikin fim ɗin jiya.

This is grammatical and means essentially the same thing: you’re still saying that what you saw (children playing at the beach) was in yesterday’s film.

Putting A cikin fim ɗin jiya first is just a topicalization: it sets the scene up front — “As for in yesterday’s film…” — and then tells you what happened there. Hausa very often fronts time or place expressions this way.

So the meaning is the same; only the emphasis and flow of information change slightly.

What does mun ga mean exactly, and how is it related to mu?

mun ga = “we saw”.

Breakdown:

mu – we (independent subject pronoun)
n – completive (perfective) marker, which often fuses with the pronoun
mun – mu + n, the “we” form in the completive (past-like) aspect
ga – see (verb)

So mun ga literally is “we-COMPL see”, i.e. we saw / we have seen.

Contrast:

mu – stand‑alone we (used in some emphasis constructions)
muna gani – we are seeing / we see (habitually)
mun ga – we saw (finished event)

Is ga here the same ga that means “to / towards” in other contexts?

No, Hausa has two different words spelled the same ga:

ga (verb) – to see
- Na ga shi – I saw him.
- Mun ga yara – We saw children.
ga (preposition/particle) – roughly “here is / there is / to” in some structures
- Ga littafi – Here is a book.
- Ka ba shi littafi, ga shi. – Give him the book, here it is.

In mun ga yara, ga is clearly the verb “to see”, not the preposition-like ga.

What is yara, and how does it relate to the singular form?

yara means children; it’s the plural of:

yaro – boy / child (male, or child in many contexts)

So:

yaro – one child
yara – children

This is an example of an irregular plural (not just adding a suffix). As an English speaker, it’s useful to memorize yaro → yara as a pair.

Why do we use suna after yara? Why not just say yara wasa?

In Hausa, a typical clause needs a subject pronoun + aspect marker before the verb or verbal noun.

su – they
na – incompletive (progressive / non‑completed) aspect marker
suna – su + na = they are / they (incompletive)

Then comes the verbal noun:

wasa – playing / play (verbal noun)

So:

yara suna wasa = the children are playing
Literally: children – they-INCOMP playing.

Just saying yara wasa would be incomplete/ungrammatical as a normal clause. You need suna to show subject and aspect.

What’s the difference between suna wasa and sun yi wasa?

Both involve su (they), but the aspect changes:

suna wasa
- su + na + wasa
- incompletive / progressive aspect
- they are playing / they were playing / they play (ongoing or habitual)
sun yi wasa
- su + n + yi + wasa
- completive (perfective) aspect
- they played / they have played (finished action)

In the sentence mun ga yara suna wasa, the progressive suna wasa fits well because you saw them in the middle of playing at that moment in the film, not just the fact that they had played at some earlier, completed time.

Could we say suna yin wasa instead of suna wasa? What’s the difference?

Yes, you can say suna yin wasa, and it’s also correct.

wasa – a verbal noun that can often act directly as “playing”.
yi – to do
yin – yi + n, the verbal noun form of “do”.

So:

suna wasa – they are playing
suna yin wasa – they are doing play / doing playing

Meaning-wise, they are very close here. In practice:

suna wasa is a bit shorter and very common.
suna yin wasa can feel a bit more explicit / formal in some styles.

Both would sound natural in this sentence.

What does a bakin teku literally mean, and how does it end up meaning “at the beach”?

Literal breakdown:

a – at / in / on
baki – mouth
bakin – the mouth of / mouth‑(of) (genitive form with -n)
teku – sea / ocean

So a bakin teku is literally “at the mouth of the sea”, i.e. at the seashore / by the sea / at the beach.

This is a common metaphor: the “mouth” of the sea is its edge / shore, just like in English you might say river mouth.

Why is it bakin and not just baki in a bakin teku?

Hausa often shows possession or “of” relationships with a linking -n/-r/-r sound (genitive linker) after the first noun.

baki – mouth
bakin – the mouth of … (baki + -n)
teku – sea

So:

bakin teku – the mouth of the sea, i.e. sea’s edge / seashore.

This -n linker is very common:

gidan malam – the house of the teacher
bakin teku – the mouth of the sea

Do we need the preposition a in a bakin teku? Could we just say bakin teku?

To express location, Hausa normally uses a before place nouns.

a gida – at home
a kasuwa – at the market
a bakin teku – at the beach / by the seashore

Just saying bakin teku names the place “the seashore / the beach” as a noun phrase, but to say “at the beach” in a sentence, you usually include a:

Yara suna wasa a bakin teku. – The children are playing at the beach.

So a is needed for the standard locative meaning.

If English says “children playing at the beach”, why does Hausa use a full clause yara suna wasa a bakin teku instead of something shorter?

Hausa doesn’t really use English‑style reduced participles like “children playing …” (without a verb “to be”) as modifiers in the same simple way.

So instead of a reduced phrase, Hausa typically uses a full clause with subject + aspect + verbal noun:

yara suna wasa a bakin teku
Literally: children – they-INCOMP playing at the beach
→ children (who are) playing at the beach

In your sentence:

mun ga yara suna wasa a bakin teku
= we saw children (who were) playing at the beach.

The “who were” part is implicit in English but is overtly expressed in Hausa via suna.