Breakdown of Yau Aisha tana goge tagogi domin ƙura ta shiga daga waje.
Questions & Answers about Yau Aisha tana goge tagogi domin ƙura ta shiga daga waje.
Tana is the 3rd person singular feminine progressive form: ta + na → tana.
- ta = she (3rd person singular feminine subject pronoun)
- na = marker for the progressive/continuous aspect
So Aisha tana goge tagogi literally is:
Aisha she-PROG wipe windows → “Aisha is wiping/cleaning the windows (right now / around this time).”
For a male subject, you would get yana (ya + na):
- Ali yana goge tagogi – “Ali is wiping the windows.”
In Hausa, verbs and subject pronouns agree with the natural gender of human beings:
- Aisha is a woman’s name → grammatically feminine
- Therefore, you must use the feminine subject pronoun: ta (and its progressive form tana)
Examples:
- Aisha tana karatu. – “Aisha is reading/studying.”
- Ali yana karatu. – “Ali is reading/studying.”
The name itself doesn’t carry a grammatical marker; speakers know from culture that Aisha is a female name, so they use ta / tana instead of ya / yana.
Goge means “to wipe / to scrub / to polish by rubbing,” typically with a cloth or something similar.
It focuses on the action of rubbing/wiping a surface, rather than general cleaning.
- tana goge tagogi – she is wiping/cleaning the windows (likely with a cloth)
- goge ƙafa – wipe/clean the feet
- goge teburi – wipe the table
For more general “clean” you will see other verbs too, for example:
- tsaftace – to clean, make clean
- shara – to sweep
So goge is more like wipe/polish/scrub than a broad “clean” in every context.
Tagogi means “windows” (plural).
The singular is taga – “a window.”
Pattern:
- taga – window (singular)
- tagogi – windows (plural)
Hausa often forms plurals with internal changes plus a suffix, and taga → tagogi is one of those irregular patterns.
So:
- Aisha tana goge taga. – “Aisha is wiping a/the window.”
- Aisha tana goge tagogi. – “Aisha is wiping the windows.”
In this sentence, domin introduces a reason or purpose clause:
- domin ƙura ta shiga daga waje – “because dust came in from outside”
(literally: “for (the reason that) dust entered from outside”)
Key points:
domin and don: In many contexts, don is just a shortened form of domin, especially in speech.
- Na yi hakan domin in taimake ka.
- Na yi hakan don in taimake ka.
Both: “I did that (in order) to help you.”
domin / don can mean:
- “because” (reason)
- “for / in order to” (purpose), depending on context
saboda mainly means “because / due to / on account of” and is usually more clearly “because,” not “in order to”:
- Na yi hakan saboda kai. – “I did that because of you.”
In this sentence, domin is best understood as “because” (giving a reason why she is wiping the windows).
In standard Hausa, a subject pronoun before the verb is usually obligatory, even when a full noun subject is present.
So the structure is:
- ƙura – dust (full noun subject)
- ta – 3rd person singular feminine subject pronoun
- shiga – to enter
Literally: “dust, it-entered from outside.”
This kind of “double subject” (full noun + pronoun) is normal in Hausa:
- Aisha tana goge tagogi. – Aisha, she is wiping the windows.
- Ali yana cin abinci. – Ali, he is eating food.
- ɗalibai suna karatu. – Students, they are studying.
ƙura is grammatically feminine, so it takes ta (she/it) rather than ya (he/it).
Both verbs are related to entering/coming in, but they have different core uses:
shiga – “to enter, to go into (something)”
- Focus on entering a place, going inside.
- Often used with a clear container/place: room, house, water, etc.
shigo – “to come in (towards here)”
- Focus on motion toward the speaker or a reference point.
- Often used as an invitation or command:
- Shigo! – “Come in!”
In ƙura ta shiga daga waje, the focus is on dust entering into the room/house from outside, not necessarily on the direction relative to the speaker. So shiga is very natural.
You could sometimes hear ƙura ta shigo daga waje, especially in some dialects, but shiga is the more neutral “enter” verb here.
Time words like yau (“today”) are very flexible in Hausa word order. Common positions:
- At the beginning:
- Yau Aisha tana goge tagogi. – “Today, Aisha is wiping the windows.”
- At the end:
- Aisha tana goge tagogi yau. – “Aisha is wiping the windows today.”
Both are grammatical. Putting Yau first often gives it a bit more emphasis or sets the scene:
- Yau Aisha tana goge tagogi… – “Today (as opposed to other days), Aisha is wiping the windows…”
So yes, Aisha tana goge tagogi yau is also fine, just slightly different in focus.
The preposition daga means “from”, and waje means “outside / outdoors.”
daga waje – “from outside”
- Emphasizes movement from the outside into somewhere.
- In our sentence: the dust came in from outside (into the house/room).
a waje – “outside, outdoors, at the outside”
- Describes location rather than movement.
- Example: Yana a waje. – “He is outside.”
waje on its own often means “outside / outdoors” too, especially in context:
- Na fita waje. – “I went outside.”
So ƙura ta shiga daga waje makes it clear that the dust entered from the outside, not just that something is located outside.
The difference is aspect (ongoing vs completed):
tana goge tagogi – progressive/continuous
- “She is wiping the windows (right now / around this time).”
- Focus on an ongoing action.
ta goge tagogi – perfective/completed
- “She wiped the windows” / “She has wiped the windows.”
- Focus on a finished action, the result is done.
So, in your sentence:
- Yau Aisha tana goge tagogi… – we imagine she is currently engaged in the activity today.
- Yau Aisha ta goge tagogi… – we imagine that at some point today, she already finished wiping the windows.
ƙura is pronounced roughly like [kʼù.rà] – a glottalized / ejective k at the start.
- k – a plain k (like English k in cat).
- ƙ – an ejective k, produced with a little “pop” of air, not aspirated like English k. It’s a distinct consonant in Hausa.
This contrast can change meaning. For example:
- kura – hyena
- ƙura – dust
So it is important to distinguish k and ƙ in both hearing and pronunciation; they are different phonemes, not just spelling variants.
Waje primarily means “outside / outdoors / exterior.” In context, it can also mean:
- a place / a spot / a space (more abstract):
- Babu waje. – “There is no space/room (for it).”
- In some expressions, it can overlap with “the public, the open” (as opposed to inside/hidden).
In your sentence, daga waje is clearly the basic spatial meaning: “from outside (the house/room).”