Learn Hardcore Hausa: Malami yana koya mana tarihin ƙasarmu da tarihin wasu ƙasashe. - The teacher is teaching us the history of our country and the history of some countries.

Yana is a form of the verb zaune (to be/sit) that’s been grammaticalized as a progressive aspect marker. In practice, you can treat it as “is (in the process of) doing”.

Malami yana koya mana…
→ The teacher is teaching us… (ongoing, present continuous/habitual)
Malami ya koya mana…
→ The teacher taught us… or sometimes the teacher has taught us… (completed action in the past)

So:

yana + verb = ongoing / present (or sometimes habitual)
ya + verb = completed action in the past

Here, yana tells you that the teaching is happening now or is a regular activity, not something that already finished.

What does mana mean, and where does it come from?

Mana is an indirect object pronoun meaning “to us / for us”.

It is built from:

mu – “we / us”
-na – a dative-like element that often appears in these pronouns

Common indirect-object forms include:

mini – to me
maka / miki – to you (m.) / to you (f.)
masa / mata – to him / to her
mana – to us
muku – to you (plural)
masu – to them

In Malami yana koya mana tarihin…, mana is the recipient of the teaching:

Malami (subject)
yana koya (is teaching)
mana (to us)
tarihin ƙasarmu… (the history of our country…)

So structurally it’s like English “teaches us (something)”.

Is koya the normal word for “to teach”? I’ve also seen koyar da—what’s the difference?

Both are used in teaching contexts, but there is a nuance:

koya – can mean to learn or to teach, depending on the structure
koyar da – more explicitly to teach, “to cause someone to learn”

Examples:

Ina koya Hausa.
→ Depending on context: I am learning Hausa or I am teaching Hausa.
Ina koyar da Hausa.
→ Clearly: I am teaching Hausa.

In a structure like the sentence you gave:

Malami yana koya mana tarihin ƙasarmu…
The subject is clearly a teacher, so koya here is naturally read as “teach”, not “learn”.

You could also say:

Malami yana koyar da mu tarihin ƙasarmu…
(literally: “The teacher is causing us to learn the history of our country…”)

Both are grammatical; koya is slightly shorter and very common in speech, especially when the subject is unambiguously the teacher.

What is the -n in tarihin ƙasarmu doing? Why not just tarihi ƙasarmu?

The -n in tarihin is the genitive linker—it links a noun to something that comes after it, similar to English “of” or the ’s possessive.

Base noun:

tarihi – “history”

When it’s followed by another noun that specifies it (“history of X”), you add the linker:

tarihin ƙasa – the history of (the) country
tarihin ƙasarmu – the history of our country

Structure:

tarihi-n ƙasarmu
history-of our-country

So tarihin ƙasarmu literally means “the history of our country”.

How is ƙasarmu built up, and what does each part mean?

ƙasarmu is made of three pieces:

ƙasa – “country / land”
-r- – a linking consonant used before some suffixes (for phonological reasons)
-mu – “our” (1st person plural possessive suffix)

So:

ƙasa → “country”
ƙasa + -r + mu → ƙasarmu – “our country”

Other examples with similar structure:

gida – house → gidansu – their house
mota – car → motarka – your (m.) car
ƙasa – country → ƙasarsu – their country

Possessive suffixes are attached directly to the noun:
--na (my), -ka / -ki (your m./f.), -sa / -ta (his/her), -mu (our), -ku (your pl.), -nsu / -su (their).

So ƙasarmu is “country-our” → our country.

Why is the plural of ƙasa “country” written as ƙasashe and not something simpler like ƙasai?

Plural formation in Hausa is often irregular and patterned, not a simple “add -s” like in English. ƙasa → ƙasashe is one of the common plural patterns.

Pattern here:

Many feminine nouns ending in -a form their plural with -oshi / -ashe / -anni, etc.
ƙasa → ƙasashe (countries)

Other examples of similar-looking patterns:

mota (car) → motoci (cars)
hanya (road) → hanyoyi (roads)
ƙarya (lie) → ƙaryace-ƙaryace (lies, reduplicated form)

So you just have to memorize that:

ƙasa – country
ƙasashe – countries

In your sentence, tarihin wasu ƙasashe = the history of some countries.

How is da functioning in this sentence? I know da can also mean “with”.

You’re right: da is multifunctional. It can mean:

and – coordinating conjunction
with – comitative/instrumental
occur in some other fixed structures

Here, da simply means “and”, linking two parallel objects:

tarihin ƙasarmu – the history of our country
da – and
tarihin wasu ƙasashe – the history of some countries

So it’s like English:

“…the history of our country *and the history of some countries.”*

Could you drop the second tarihin and just say tarihin ƙasarmu da wasu ƙasashe?

You can, but it slightly changes how clear or formal the sentence feels.

With repetition (original):
Malami yana koya mana tarihin ƙasarmu da tarihin wasu ƙasashe.
→ Very explicit: “the history of our country and the history of some countries.”
Without repetition:
Malami yana koya mana tarihin ƙasarmu da wasu ƙasashe.
→ Literally: “the history of our country and some countries.”

This second version is understandable in context, but grammatically it can also be read as:

He teaches us the history of our country
and
he teaches us some countries (as topics)

Because the tarihin is not overtly repeated, the structure is less parallel on the surface.

Native speakers do often drop repeated nouns when context is clear, so the shorter version is not wrong in casual speech. But for clean, learner-friendly grammar and maximum clarity, the original version with tarihin repeated is better.

What does wasu add to the meaning? Does it mean “some” or “other”?

Wasu generally means “some” or “certain”, and sometimes context makes it feel like “other”.

In tarihin wasu ƙasashe:

wasu – some / certain
ƙasashe – countries

So the phrase is “the history of some (particular) countries”.

Depending on context, it can imply:

“some additional countries (besides our own)” → feels like “other countries”
just “some countries (not all, some selection)”

More examples:

Na sayi wasu littattafai. – I bought some books.
Wasu mutane sun tafi. – Some people left.

So here, it signals that the teacher is not teaching the history of all countries, but just some (selected) ones.

What is the basic word order in this sentence, and where do pronouns like mana normally go?

The basic order is Subject – Aspect marker – Verb – Indirect object – Direct object:

Malami – subject (the teacher)
yana – aspect marker (is)
koya – verb (teach)
mana – indirect object pronoun (to us)
tarihin ƙasarmu da tarihin wasu ƙasashe – direct object (what is being taught)

So a schematic view:

S – (Aspect) – V – IO – DO

Indirect object pronouns like mana typically appear right after the verb:

Yana ba su kuɗi. – He is giving them money.
Zan gaya maka gaskiya. – I will tell you (m.) the truth.
Malami yana koya mana tarihin ƙasarmu. – The teacher is teaching us the history of our country.

You generally don’t move mana to the end, so something like *Malami yana koya tarihin ƙasarmu mana is not natural.

How would the sentence change if I wanted to say “The teacher taught us…” instead of “is teaching us…”?

You mainly change the aspect marker yana to the simple past marker ya:

Malami yana koya mana tarihin ƙasarmu da tarihin wasu ƙasashe.
→ The teacher is teaching us the history of our country and the history of some countries.
Malami ya koya mana tarihin ƙasarmu da tarihin wasu ƙasashe.
→ The teacher taught us the history of our country and the history of some countries.

Key difference:

yana + verb → ongoing / present (progressive or habitual)
ya + verb → completed event in the past

Everything else in the sentence can stay the same.