Breakdown of Malami ya sa mu yi zagaye a filin wasa kafin darasin motsa jiki.
Questions & Answers about Malami ya sa mu yi zagaye a filin wasa kafin darasin motsa jiki.
The sequence “ya sa mu yi …” is a very common Hausa causative structure. Literally, it is something like:
- ya – he (3rd person masculine singular, perfective)
- sa – to cause / to make / to have (someone do something)
- mu – us / we
- yi – do (subjunctive form of yi “to do”)
So “ya sa mu yi zagaye” is literally:
“he caused us to do a round”
→ “he made us do a lap” / “he had us go around.”
Pattern:
> [subject] + sa + [object pronoun] + [verb in subjunctive]
> = make / have / get someone to do something
Examples:
- Mahaifiyata ta sa ni in je kasuwa.
“My mother made me go to the market.” - Zan sa su su yi aiki.
“I will make them work.”
After sa (in this causative sense), Hausa normally uses the subjunctive form of the verb, not a normal tense form.
- mu yi – “(that) we should do”
This is the subjunctive: pronoun + bare verb. - muke yi – “we are doing” (imperfective, ongoing)
- mun yi – “we have done / we did” (perfective, completed)
Because sa is saying “he caused us to do (something)”, Hausa uses the “to do” idea → subjunctive:
- ya sa mu yi zagaye
= “he made us (to) do a lap”
You would not say ya sa mu muke zagaye or ya sa mu mun yi zagaye in this meaning; those sound wrong. Causative sa wants the subjunctive.
Yes, it is the same verb sa, but used in different ways:
“sa” = to put (something) / to wear
- Ya sa riga. – “He put on a shirt.”
- Na sa hula. – “I wore a cap.”
“sa” = to cause / to make (someone do something)
(our sentence)- Malami ya sa mu yi zagaye. – “The teacher made us do a lap.”
So the same verb sa has two main common meanings:
- put / wear
- cause / make / have (someone do something)
Context tells you which one is intended.
Here, because sa is followed by object pronoun + verb (mu yi), it clearly has the causative meaning.
In “yi zagaye”, zagaye is acting like a noun, and the whole expression yi zagaye is a verb phrase: “to do a lap / to make a circuit / to go around.”
- yi – do
- zagaye – a round / circuit / lap
So:
- yi zagaye a filin wasa
→ “do laps / go around in the playground / field”
This is a very common Hausa pattern: yi + noun to form a verbal idea:
- yi barci – “sleep” (literally “do sleep”)
- yi shiri – “get ready / prepare”
- yi tafiya – “travel / go on a journey”
You could also see zagaye used more literally as “round, circle, circuit”:
- Zan yi zagaye na biyu. – “I will do a second lap.”
“a” is a very common preposition in Hausa that usually covers “in / at / on” depending on context.
- a filin wasa – “in the playground / at the field / on the field”
If you say:
- cikin filin wasa, that’s more like “inside the field / inside the playground area.”
In this sentence: > Malami ya sa mu yi zagaye a filin wasa…
We’re talking about where they ran / went around. “a filin wasa” is the normal, neutral way to say “in/at the playground”. It doesn’t need the nuance of “inside” that cikin would suggest.
Yes, “filin wasa” is a noun phrase made of two words:
- fili – open space, ground, field
- -n – linker (genitive marker, attached to the first noun)
- wasa – play, playing, game, sport
Together:
- fili-n wasa → filin wasa
literally “field of play”, i.e. playground, playing field.
So:
- filin wasa – “playground / sports field”
- filin kwallo – “football field” (literally “field of ball”)
The -n attached to fili is the genitive linker that connects the two nouns.
“kafin” means “before” in Hausa.
In this sentence:
- kafin darasin motsa jiki – “before the P.E. lesson / before the exercise class”
Basic pattern:
- kafin + noun phrase
- kafin darasi – before (the) lesson
- kafin sallar asuba – before the dawn prayer
Or:
- kafin + clause (before [someone] does [something])
- kafin mu tafi – before we go
- kafin a fara darasi – before the lesson starts
So kafin introduces the time context: something happens earlier than another event.
“darasin motsa jiki” is a genitive (possessive/descriptive) chain:
- darasi – lesson
- -n – genitive linker (attached to darasi → darasin)
- motsa jiki – physical exercise (literally “movement of the body”)
So it is literally: > “lesson of exercise (of the body)” = P.E. lesson / physical exercise class
In Hausa, when one noun modifies another (lesson of X, book of Y, house of Z), the first noun typically takes a linker -n / -r / -ar depending on the word.
Examples:
- darasin Turanci – English lesson
- littafin Hausa – Hausa book
- gidan malam – the teacher’s house
So:
- darasin motsa jiki – “the lesson of physical exercise.”
“motsa jiki” is:
- motsa – to move, stir, shake
- jiki – body
Literally: “movement of the body”.
As an idiomatic expression, it means “physical exercise / workout / physical activity.”
So:
- Ina son motsa jiki. – “I like exercising.”
- Yana yin motsa jiki kullum. – “He does physical exercise every day.”
In schools, “darasin motsa jiki” refers to P.E. (Physical Education) class.
Hausa normally does not use a separate word for “the” like English does. Definiteness is usually understood from context, or shown by things like pronouns, linkers, or word order.
- malami can be “a teacher” or “the teacher” depending on context.
- malamin (with -n) often helps mark something as more specific: “the teacher / the teacher’s”.
In this sentence:
Malami ya sa mu yi zagaye…
In a typical school-story context, an English speaker would translate this as:
- “The teacher made us do a lap…”
because we normally assume the speaker is talking about the known teacher in charge of the class. Hausa doesn’t need to mark it explicitly with a separate word like the.
“ya sa” here is 3rd person masculine singular, perfective:
- ya – he (3rd person singular masculine, perfective subject marker)
- sa – (he) caused / made
In context, this is normally understood as past or a completed action:
- Malami ya sa mu yi zagaye…
→ “The teacher made us do a lap…”
If you wanted to talk about the future, you’d change the subject marker:
- Malami zai sa mu yi zagaye… – “The teacher will make us do a lap…”
- Malami yana sa mu yi zagaye… – “The teacher (usually / habitually) makes us do laps…”
Hausa has different forms of pronouns for direct objects vs indirect objects.
- mu – “us / we” (subject or direct object)
- mana – “to/for us” (indirect object form)
In “ya sa mu yi zagaye”, “mu” is the direct object of sa:
- He made us do a lap.
Using mana would mean something like “for us / to us”, which doesn’t fit the causative structure:
- ya sa mu yi zagaye – correct: “he made us do a lap”
- ya sa mana yi zagaye – ungrammatical / strange in this sense
So in causative sa + object pronoun + verb, the object pronoun is the direct object (mu, ni, su, shi, ta, mu, ku).
Yes, you could say:
- Malami ya sa mu zagaya filin wasa.
This uses the verb zagaya (“to go around”) directly, instead of the idiomatic yi zagaye (“do a lap”). The basic meaning is very close:
- ya sa mu yi zagaye a filin wasa
– “he made us do laps in the playground” - ya sa mu zagaya filin wasa
– “he made us go around the field”
Difference in feel:
- yi zagaye sounds more like “do laps / make circuits,” a bit more idiomatic, like in sports.
- zagaya filin wasa focuses a bit more literally on “going around the field.”
Both are understandable and correct; the original sounds very natural in a P.E. context.