Iyaye sun ba makaranta shawarwari masu kyau game da tsari na ajanda.

Parents gave the school good suggestions about the structure of the agenda.

Breakdown of Iyaye sun ba makaranta shawarwari masu kyau game da tsari na ajanda.

• mai kyau: good
• makaranta: the school
• na: of
• ba: to give
• iyaye: the parents
• game da: about
• shawara: the suggestion
• ajanda: the agenda
• tsari: the structure

Questions & Answers about Iyaye sun ba makaranta shawarwari masu kyau game da tsari na ajanda.

What is the basic word-by-word structure of this sentence compared to English?

The Hausa sentence:

Iyaye sun ba makaranta shawarwari masu kyau game da tsari na ajanda.

roughly maps to English as:

• Iyaye – parents
• sun – they + past/perfective marker (have / did)
• ba – give
• makaranta – (the) school
• shawarwari – suggestions / advice (plural)
• masu kyau – that are good / good
• game da – about / regarding
• tsari na ajanda – the structure of the agenda

So the order is:

Subject – tense/aspect – verb – indirect object – direct object – adjective – prepositional phrase

which is very close to English:

Parents have given the school good suggestions about the structure of the agenda.

What exactly does Iyaye mean? Is it just “parents”?

Iyaye is a plural noun that usually means:

• parents (mother and father together), or
• elders / older people in a more general sense, depending on context.

Some related words:

• uba – father
• uwa – mother
• iyaye – parents / elders
• mahaifi – father (more formal/literary)
• mahaifiya – mother (more formal/literary)

In this sentence, Iyaye is clearly parents, because they are dealing with a makaranta (school) and giving shawarwari (suggestions).

What does sun do here? Is it a pronoun or a tense marker?

sun combines person and aspect:

• su = they (3rd person plural pronoun)
• the -n on it marks perfective aspect (completed action)

So sun here means something like “they have” or “they (did)” in English.

In Hausa, you normally put this kind of subject + aspect form before the verb:

• sun ba – they have given / they gave
• na ba – I have given / I gave (na = I + perfective)
• ya ba – he has given / he gave

So Iyaye sun ba… = The parents have given… / The parents gave…

What does the verb ba mean, and how is it used in this sentence?

Here, ba is the verb “to give” (not the negative particle).

Basic pattern for ba:

• Subject + (aspect) + ba + recipient + thing given

In the sentence:

• Iyaye – parents (subject)
• sun – have (3rd pl perfective)
• ba – give
• makaranta – (the) school (recipient)
• shawarwari – suggestions (thing given)

So:

Iyaye sun ba makaranta shawarwari…
Parents have given the school suggestions…

Note: Hausa also has ba da (“to give out / to give (something)”), e.g. ba da shawara “give advice”, but here the simple ba is used with an explicit recipient (makaranta).

“Ba” can also mean “not” in Hausa, right? How do I know that ba here means “give” and not “not”?

Correct: ba can be:

1. A verb meaning give (as in this sentence).
2. A negative marker (part of some negative constructions).

You can tell which is which from:

1. Position and pattern

   • As a verb, ba comes where other verbs come, after the subject/aspect:
     
     • Iyaye sun ba makaranta… – Parents have given the school…
   • As part of a negative, you normally see a fuller pattern like:
     • ba su ba – they did not (…)
     • ba ni da – I do not have

2. Meaning of the rest of the sentence
   Here, the sentence clearly describes a positive action (parents giving advice), so ba must be “give”.

Why is there no word for “the” or “a” before Iyaye and makaranta?

Hausa does not have separate words for “the” or “a/an” like English.

• Iyaye can be parents or the parents, depending on context.
• makaranta can be school or the school.

Definiteness is usually understood from the situation or from other details in the sentence. So:

• Iyaye sun ba makaranta… can be translated as:
  • Parents gave a school… or
  • The parents gave the school…,

depending on what makes sense in the context. The English the / a is added only when you translate.

What does makaranta mean exactly, and is it always the object like this?

makaranta means school. It can play different roles in a sentence (subject, object, etc.):

• As subject:
  
  • Makaranta ta buƙaci shawarwari. – The school requested suggestions.
• As object/recipient, as in this sentence:
  
  • Iyaye sun ba makaranta shawarwari. – Parents gave the school suggestions.

In Iyaye sun ba makaranta shawarwari, makaranta is the recipient of the verb ba – the one receiving the suggestions. In English we would usually show this with “to”:

Parents gave suggestions to the school.

Hausa expresses this by putting makaranta directly after ba, no extra preposition is needed.

What does shawarwari mean, and how is it formed?

shawarwari is the plural of shawara.

• shawara – an opinion, suggestion, piece of advice
• shawarwari – suggestions / pieces of advice (plural)

In Hausa, many nouns form their plural with a pattern change, not just by adding a simple ending. shawara → shawarwari is an example of this kind of plural formation. In this sentence it fits well with English suggestions or pieces of advice.

How does the phrase masu kyau work grammatically?

masu kyau literally means “those who have goodness”, and functions like “good” for plural nouns.

• mai kyau – good / beautiful (for a singular thing/person)
• masu kyau – good / beautiful (for plural things/people)

Examples:

• littafi mai kyau – a good book
• littattafai masu kyau – good books
• shawarwari masu kyau – good suggestions

So in the sentence:

shawarwari masu kyau = good suggestions

The adjective phrase follows the noun, which is the normal order in Hausa: noun + describing word.

What does game da mean and where does it usually go in a sentence?

game da is a prepositional phrase meaning about / regarding / concerning.

• game da littafi – about the book
• game da aiki – about work
• game da tsari na ajanda – about the structure of the agenda

It usually comes before the thing it refers to, just as in English:

game da tsari na ajanda – about the structure of the agenda

Position in the whole sentence:

• It normally comes after the main verb phrase, like an English phrase with “about …” at the end:
  • Iyaye sun ba makaranta shawarwari masu kyau game da tsari na ajanda.
  • Parents have given the school good suggestions about the structure of the agenda.

What does tsari na ajanda mean, and why is na used here?

tsari na ajanda literally is:

• tsari – arrangement, organization, structure
• na – of / belonging to (linker)
• ajanda – agenda (loan word from English)

So tsari na ajanda = the structure of the agenda.

About na:

• na is a linking word that often corresponds to “of” in English.
• It connects two nouns into a possessive/associative phrase:
  • littafi na Hausa – a book of Hausa / Hausa book
  • sautin murya (alt. sauti na murya) – the sound of a voice
  • tsari na ajanda – the structure of the agenda

You might also hear tsarin ajanda in Hausa (with a genitive ending on tsari). Both tsari na ajanda and tsarin ajanda are understandable as “the agenda’s structure / structure of the agenda”. The version with na is slightly more explicit and is very common in modern speech.

Could I also say Iyaye sun ba da shawarwari? How is that different from sun ba makaranta shawarwari?

Yes, ba da is another common way to say “to give (out)” or “to provide”, especially when you focus more on the thing given than on the recipient.

• Iyaye sun ba da shawarwari.
  – The parents have given (out) suggestions / provided suggestions.
  (The recipient may be understood from context or left general.)

• Iyaye sun ba makaranta shawarwari.
  – The parents have given the school suggestions.
  (Recipient makaranta is explicitly stated.)

In your original sentence, the presence of makaranta as recipient makes ba (without da) perfectly natural:

Iyaye sun ba makaranta shawarwari masu kyau…

If you say:

Iyaye sun ba da shawarwari masu kyau…,

you are just saying that they gave good suggestions, without directly saying to whom in that clause. You could then add ga makaranta or similar if you want to specify:

• Iyaye sun ba da shawarwari masu kyau ga makaranta. – Parents gave good suggestions to the school.

Can the elements in the sentence be reordered, or is this word order fixed?

Some parts of the sentence are fairly fixed, others are flexible:

1. Core clause order is fixed:

   • Subject – aspect – verb – objects is the normal pattern.
   • So you keep:
     • Iyaye sun ba makaranta shawarwari…

2. Adjectival phrase position is also fixed:

   • Adjectives and adjective-like phrases come after the noun:
     • shawarwari masu kyau (not masu kyau shawarwari).

3. Prepositional phrase can move a little:

   • Most natural:
     • …shawarwari masu kyau game da tsari na ajanda.
   • You could, for emphasis, sometimes move game da… earlier in speech, but it is safest and most natural for learners to keep it at the end, like in the original sentence.

So for clear, standard Hausa, keep the sentence in essentially the same order as given:

Iyaye sun ba makaranta shawarwari masu kyau game da tsari na ajanda.