Learn Hardcore Hausa: Akwai al'ada a wasu gidaje cewa yara ba sa saka tufafi rawaya a biki. - There is a custom in some households that children do not wear yellow clothes at a celebration.

In Hausa you normally start this kind of sentence with Akwai rather than trying to use a form of “to be” like in English. You could rephrase with other structures (for example Wata al’ada ce…, “It is a certain custom…”), but Akwai is the most straightforward way to say “there is/are” in a neutral way.

Does al’ada mean “custom” or “tradition,” and does it need any article like “a/the”?

Al’ada means “custom, habit, tradition.”

Hausa doesn’t have separate words for “a” and “the” like English. Whether you translate al’ada as “a custom” or “the custom” depends on context.

Here, because we’re introducing a non‑specific tradition (“a custom in some households”), it’s natural in English to say “a custom,” but Hausa just uses bare al’ada.

The apostrophe in al’ada represents a glottal stop (a brief catch in the throat): al-’a-da.

What exactly does a wasu gidaje mean, word by word?

a = in / at (general location preposition)
wasu = some (plural, indefinite)
gidaje = houses, homes, households (plural of gida, “house”)

So a wasu gidaje literally is “in some houses/households.”

The same a is repeated again later in a biki, where it means “at (a) celebration.”

How is the plural formed in gidaje and yara? They don’t look like simple “add -s” plurals.

Hausa plurals are often irregular.

gida (house) → gidaje (houses)
- The pattern here is a suffix -je and a change inside the word.
yaro (child, boy) → yara (children)
- This is a common irregular plural where -ro changes to -ra and the vowel pattern shifts.

You just have to learn many of these plural patterns as vocabulary; they’re not formed with one simple rule like English -s.

What is the role of cewa in this sentence? Is it like English “that,” and can it be left out?

Yes, cewa is a complementizer, roughly equivalent to English “that” in reported speech or in clauses like “the fact that…”.

Here, Akwai al’ada a wasu gidaje cewa… = “There is a custom in some households that…”

In many contexts, Hausa can drop cewa, especially in fast speech, so you might hear:

Akwai al’ada a wasu gidaje yara ba sa saka…

However, including cewa makes the structure clearer and is very common and natural in careful speech and writing.

How does negation work in yara ba sa saka…? Why ba sa?

The positive habitual/progressive for “they wear/are wearing” is:

Yara suna saka tufafi rawaya. – “The children wear / are wearing yellow clothes.”

To make this negative in the same aspect, Hausa changes suna to ba sa:

Yara ba sa saka tufafi rawaya. – “The children do not wear / are not wearing yellow clothes.”

So here:

suna (they are / they do) → ba sa (they are not / they do not)

This pattern is specific to the imperfective/habitual aspect.

Why isn’t there a second ba at the end, like yara ba sa saka tufafi rawaya ba?

Hausa negation behaves differently depending on the tense/aspect.

For perfective (completed actions), you usually get a ba … ba frame:
- Sun saka tufafi rawaya. – “They wore yellow clothes.”
- Ba su saka tufafi rawaya ba. – “They didn’t wear yellow clothes.”
For the imperfective/habitual (ongoing/general actions), the second ba is normally dropped:
- Suna saka tufafi rawaya. – “They wear / are wearing yellow clothes.”
- Ba sa saka tufafi rawaya. – “They don’t wear / aren’t wearing yellow clothes.”

So the form in the sentence (ba sa saka…, without a final ba) is exactly what you expect for a habitual statement.

What does saka mean here, and is it the same as sa?

In this context, saka means “to put on / to wear (clothes, shoes, etc.).”

Hausa also has sa, which can overlap in meaning (also “put on, wear, put, place”), but:

saka tufafi – commonly “to wear clothes”
sa riga / sa hula – also “to put on a shirt / cap”

In everyday speech there is a lot of overlap; you will hear both verbs with clothing. This sentence could also be heard with sa instead of saka, but saka is very natural here.

Why is rawaya (yellow) placed after tufafi (clothes), not before like in English?

In Hausa, adjectives normally come after the noun they modify.

tufafi rawaya – literally “clothes yellow” = “yellow clothes”
gida babba – “big house”
mutum mai tsayi – “tall man”

So tufafi rawaya follows the standard noun + adjective order, unlike English, which usually puts adjectives before nouns.

Could we say tufafin rawaya instead of tufafi rawaya? What’s the difference?

Yes, tufafin rawaya is also correct, but there’s a nuance:

tufafi rawaya – “yellow clothes” (more bare, general)
tufafin rawaya – “the yellow clothes / those yellow clothes” (with a sense of definiteness or possession)

The suffix -n in tufafi → tufafin is a linker/definite marker that often corresponds to English “the” or to possessive constructions.

In this generic statement about what children wear as a rule, tufafi rawaya (without -n) is perfectly natural and appropriately general.

What does biki mean exactly? Is it specifically a wedding?

Biki means “celebration, ceremony, festivity, party,” but in many Hausa-speaking contexts it most commonly refers to wedding celebrations, especially if no other context is given.

More specific forms are:

bikin aure – wedding ceremony/celebration
bikin suna – naming ceremony for a baby

In this sentence, a biki is best understood as “at a (social) celebration/party,” and depending on culture and context, many listeners will picture a wedding.

Is the a in a wasu gidaje the same as the a in a biki? Does it mean both “in” and “at”?

Yes, it’s the same preposition a, and it broadly covers meanings that English splits into “in, at, on.”

a gida – in/at home
a Kano – in Kano
a kasuwa – at the market
a biki – at a celebration

The exact English preposition you choose depends on context, but Hausa simply uses a for this general locative function.

Can we move a wasu gidaje to the front, like A wasu gidaje, akwai al’ada cewa…? Would that change the meaning?

You can absolutely say:

A wasu gidaje, akwai al’ada cewa yara ba sa saka tufafi rawaya a biki.

This is still natural and keeps essentially the same meaning.

Putting a wasu gidaje first slightly highlights the location (“In some households, there is a custom that…”) rather than starting with the existence of the custom in general. It’s a matter of emphasis and style rather than a major change in meaning.