Breakdown of Yara suna zaune a ƙasa a cikin ɗaki.
Questions & Answers about Yara suna zaune a ƙasa a cikin ɗaki.
Word by word:
- Yara – children
- suna – they are (progressive/continuous marker for “they”)
- zaune – sitting / seated
- a – at / on / in (general location preposition)
- ƙasa – ground / floor
- a – at / in (again, for another location phrase)
- cikin – inside / in the middle of
- ɗaki – room
So the whole sentence is literally:
“Children they-are seated on ground in inside room.” → “The children are sitting on the floor in the room.”
In Hausa, the combination of a pronoun + aspect marker (like suna) plus a verbal adjective (like zaune) is a very common way to show a current, ongoing state or action.
- suna = “they are (doing / being)” – continuous/progressive marker for 3rd person plural
- zaune = “seated / sitting” (verbal adjective from the verb zauna, “to sit / reside”)
So:
- Yara suna zaune = “The children are sitting / are seated.” (right now, ongoing)
You can sometimes hear things like “Yara zaune a ƙasa”, especially in very informal, quick speech, but the full standard form is with suna. Without suna, the sentence can sound incomplete or less clearly progressive in many contexts.
Zaune is a verbal adjective (sometimes called a participle-like form) derived from the verb zauna (“to sit / reside / stay”).
- zauna – the base verb “to sit, to live (somewhere), to reside”
- zaune – “sitting, seated, in a sitting position”
In combinations like “suna zaune”, it behaves a bit like English “sitting” in “They are sitting,” but structurally in Hausa it’s best thought of as a state:
- suna zaune – “they are in a sitting state”
Other common pairs:
- tsaya (to stand) → tsaye (standing)
- kwanciya (to lie down) → kwance (lying down)
Not with the same meaning.
- zaune refers specifically to the physical posture “sitting / seated.”
- zama is the verbal noun/infinitive from zauna, and it usually means “staying, living, being (in a place)” or “to sit” in a more abstract sense.
“Yara suna zama a ƙasa” would most naturally be understood as:
- “The children (habitually) live/stay on the ground,”
which sounds odd or wrong for the intended meaning. For current posture (“are sitting”), you want:
- Yara suna zaune a ƙasa.
Hausa does not have a direct equivalent of the English definite article “the.”
Whether yara means “children” or “the children” is decided by context, not by a special article word. So:
- Yara suna zaune a ƙasa a cikin ɗaki.
- Can be understood as “Children are sitting on the floor in the room” or
- “The children are sitting on the floor in the room,”
depending on what has already been mentioned in the conversation.
If the children are already known to both speakers, the natural English translation uses “the children” even though Hausa doesn’t mark that explicitly.
In Hausa, a is a general preposition roughly meaning “at / in / on.” Each separate location phrase usually takes its own a:
- a ƙasa – on the ground / floor
- a cikin ɗaki – in the room (literally “at inside (the) room”)
You can think of the sentence as:
- [sitting] on the floor, [sitting] in the room.
Each location phrase stands on its own, so it gets its own a.
You should not normally drop either a here. Saying “a ƙasa cikin ɗaki” without the second a is not standard; it sounds off or at least very informal.
Both can mean “in the room,” but there is a nuance:
- a ɗaki – in the room (neutral “at that location”)
- a cikin ɗaki – inside the room (slightly more explicit that they are inside, not at the door, corridor, etc.)
In many everyday contexts, they overlap a lot, and speakers might use either. a cikin ɗaki can feel a bit more specific or emphatic about being inside.
So you could also say:
- Yara suna zaune a ƙasa a ɗaki. – “The children are sitting on the floor in the room.”
Grammatically fine, just a tiny tiny shift in emphasis.
ƙasa literally means “ground, earth, soil, land.” Context decides how we translate it:
- Outside:
- Yara suna wasa a ƙasa. – “The children are playing on the ground.”
- Inside a house / room:
- Yara suna zaune a ƙasa a cikin ɗaki. – “The children are sitting on the floor in the room.”
There is also bene for “upstairs” or “floor (storey of a building),” but for the surface they’re sitting on, Hausa usually just uses ƙasa, and we pick “floor” in English if it’s indoors.
The dot matters: ƙ and k are considered different consonants in Hausa:
- ƙasa (with ƙ) – ground, land, earth
- kasa (with plain k) – usually related to “to fail” or “to be unable to,” as in na kasa (“I couldn’t / I failed”).
So you must write and pronounce the dot correctly:
- ƙ is an implosive “k”-sound (drawn slightly inward)
- k is a regular voiceless “k”
Using the wrong one can completely change the meaning.
Yes. Hausa distinguishes between:
- ɗ – an implosive “d” sound (made with a slight inward movement of air)
- d – a regular voiced “d”
Orthographically, ɗaki with ɗ means “room.”
A spelling with plain d (daki) would either be considered a mistake or something different, depending on context.
So always write ɗaki (with the dot under the ɗ) for “room.”
Yes, if the subject “they” is already clear from context.
- Suna zaune a ƙasa a cikin ɗaki. – “They are sitting on the floor in the room.”
Here, suna already contains the idea of “they” (3rd person plural). Adding yara makes it explicit that the “they” are children:
- Yara suna zaune … – “(The) children are sitting …”
So:
- If it’s already clear that you’re talking about children: Suna zaune … is fine.
- If you want to introduce or emphasize that the subject is children: Yara suna zaune … is better.
suna zaune is progressive/continuous aspect with a stative meaning:
- Most naturally: “are (currently) sitting / are in a sitting state.”
It normally refers to a present, ongoing situation:
- Yanzu, yara suna zaune a ƙasa. – “Right now, the children are sitting on the floor.”
For habitual meaning (“they usually sit on the floor”), Hausa often uses the same form plus context or an adverb of time, or a different construction, for example:
- Yara kan zauna a ƙasa. – “Children usually sit on the floor.”
So “Yara suna zaune a ƙasa a cikin ɗaki” is best read as present, here-and-now.
The normal, most natural order is:
- Subject: Yara
- Verb phrase: suna zaune
- Location 1 (more specific/closer to the verb): a ƙasa (on the floor)
- Location 2 (larger container): a cikin ɗaki (in the room)
So: Yara suna zaune a ƙasa a cikin ɗaki.
You might occasionally hear other orders in speech, but many alternatives either sound marked, less natural, or focus-shifted. For a learner, it’s best to keep this order as the standard pattern.
One natural negative version is:
- Yara ba sa zaune a ƙasa a cikin ɗaki.
Breakdown:
- Yara – children
- ba sa – they do not (progressive/continuous negative)
- zaune – sitting
- a ƙasa – on the floor
- a cikin ɗaki – in the room
Meaning: “The children are not sitting on the floor in the room.”