Learn Hardcore Hausa: 'Yar uwata tana son zane, kullum tana zana furanni da dabbobi. - My sister likes drawing; every day she draws flowers and animals.

'yar = female child, daughter (the genitive form of 'ya “girl/daughter”)
uwa = mother
-ta = the possessive ending my for many feminine nouns ending in -a

So:

uwata = my mother
'yar uwata = the female child of my mother

In normal English, “the female child of my mother” is simply my sister.
This expression doesn’t distinguish older/younger; it just means a female sibling from the same mother.

Why does uwa take the possessive ending -ta (uwata) for my, instead of -na?

Hausa has two common 1st‑person singular possessive endings:

-na after many non‑feminine nouns:
- gidana = my house (gida
  - -na)
- sunana = my name (suna
  - -na)
-ta after many feminine nouns ending in -a:
- motata = my car (mota
  - -ta)
- yarinyata = my girl/daughter (yarinya
  - -ta)
- uwata = my mother (uwa
  - -ta)

So uwa is treated like those other feminine -a nouns, and the correct “my mother” form is uwata, not uwana.

What is the purpose of the apostrophe at the beginning of 'Yar?

The ' in 'yar is not a quotation mark; it represents a special consonant in Hausa pronunciation.

Standard Hausa writes this consonant as ƴ (a glottalized / ejective y).
On keyboards where ƴ is hard to type, people often write 'y instead.

So:

Ƴar uwata and 'Yar uwata are just two spellings of the same thing.
The apostrophe shows that the sound is not a simple y, but a distinct consonant in Hausa.

In practical learning, you can treat ƴ or 'y as a single consonant that behaves differently from plain y.

What exactly does tana mean here?

tana is a combination of:

ta = “she” (3rd person singular feminine subject marker)
plus a marker of continuous / ongoing / habitual aspect (historically na)

In modern grammar you just learn tana as “she is / she does (habitually)” before a verb or verbal noun.

Examples:

tana cin abinci = she is eating / she eats (food)
tana wasa = she is playing / she plays (as a habit)

In the sentence 'Yar uwata tana son zane, tana shows that this liking is a current, ongoing preference, not just something that happened once in the past.

Why is tana repeated in tana son zane, kullum tana zana furanni da dabbobi? Could we leave it out the second time?

In standard Hausa, each finite verb or verbal phrase normally has its own subject marker.

Here we have two predicates about the same person:

tana son zane = she likes drawing
kullum tana zana furanni da dabbobi = every day she draws flowers and animals

Even though the subject is the same, Hausa usually repeats tana in front of the second predicate to show:

the subject (she), and
the aspect (continuous / habitual)

If you completely drop the second tana, … kullum zana furanni da dabbobi, it sounds incomplete or non‑standard in careful speech, even if people might still understand you in casual conversation.

What is the difference between zane and zana?

They are related but not the same:

zana – verb: to draw, sketch, design
- Ina zana = I am drawing
- Ta zana hoto = She drew a picture
zane – noun / verbal noun: drawing, design, pattern, (also) patterned cloth
- zane mai kyau = a nice design
- son zane = love/liking of drawing

In the sentence:

tana son zane – she likes drawing (as an activity / art)
tana zana furanni da dabbobi – she draws flowers and animals

So zana is the action (to draw), zane is the thing/activity (drawing / design).

Why is it tana son zane and not tana so zane?

The basic verb is so = to like, to love, to want.
Its verbal noun (or “-ing” form) is son = liking/love.

Very often, Hausa expresses ongoing feelings and preferences with:

[subject marker] + son + [thing liked]

Examples:

Ina son kofi = I like coffee
Muna son wasa = We like playing / We like games
Tana son zane = She likes drawing

Using bare so as a verb (without the -n) is more common in perfective contexts:

Na so shi = I liked him / I loved it (at some point)

So tana son zane is the natural way to say she likes drawing in general. tana so zane is not the normal pattern here.

How does kullum work in this sentence? Does it mean “always” or “every day”, and where can it go?

kullum literally means every day, and by extension often means always / all the time.

In this sentence:

kullum tana zana furanni da dabbobi
= (she) always / every day draws flowers and animals

Position is fairly flexible:

Kullum tana zana furanni da dabbobi.
Tana zana furanni da dabbobi kullum.

Both are acceptable. Putting kullum at the start slightly emphasizes the frequency (“As for every day, she draws…”), but the basic meaning is the same: it’s a habitual action.

What does furanni come from, and how is that plural formed?

The singular is:

fure = flower

The plural is:

furanni = flowers

This is an example of one of Hausa’s many plural patterns. Here:

the vowel e changes to a, and
a doubled -nni ending is added.

So you get fure → furanni.
You just have to learn this plural as a fixed pair (fure / furanni), because it doesn’t follow a simple one‑size‑fits‑all rule.

Why is da used between furanni and dabbobi? Is it “and” or “with”?

da in Hausa can mean both:

and (linking nouns in a list)
with (as a preposition)

In this sentence it works as and:

furanni da dabbobi = flowers and animals

Some examples:

ruwa da burodi = water and bread
ya tafi da abokinsa = he went with his friend

If you want to link whole clauses (“and then, and also”), Hausa often uses words like kuma, sai, amma, etc. But for simply joining two nouns, da is the normal choice.

How do we know the subject here is feminine “she”, not masculine “he”?

Two things show that the subject is feminine:

'yar – explicitly marks a female child / daughter.
tana – is the feminine 3rd person singular subject marker.

For a male sibling, you would have:

ɗan uwata yana son zane, kullum yana zana furanni da dabbobi.
- ɗan uwata = my brother (literally “male child of my mother”)
- yana = he is / he (habitually) does

So 'Yar … tana … clearly encodes “she”, not “he”.

Could we also say something like 'Yar uwata tana son yin zane? If yes, what is the difference?

Yes, that is possible:

tana son zane – she likes drawing / she likes (the art of) drawing
tana son yin zane – she likes doing drawing, she likes to draw

Here:

yi = to do
yin = doing (verbal noun of yi)

So son yin zane is literally liking the doing of drawing.

In everyday speech, tana son zane is already fully natural and clear.
Adding yin can slightly emphasize the activity itself (“the act of drawing”), but in most contexts both will be understood simply as “she likes drawing”.