Malama ta ce mu kawo zane na dabba ɗaya gobe zuwa aji.

The female teacher told us to bring a drawing of one animal tomorrow to class.

Breakdown of Malama ta ce mu kawo zane na dabba ɗaya gobe zuwa aji.

• gobe: tomorrow
• na: of
• mu: we
• zuwa: to
• ce: to say
• kawo: to bring
• aji: the class
• ɗaya: one
• malama: the female teacher
• zane: the drawing
• dabba: the animal

Questions & Answers about Malama ta ce mu kawo zane na dabba ɗaya gobe zuwa aji.

What exactly does Malama mean here? Is it just “teacher”?

Malama is a female teacher.

• Malam = male teacher / learned man.
• Malama = female teacher (you can think “Mrs./Ms. Teacher”).

So Malama ta ce… is specifically “the (female) teacher said…”, not just any teacher in general.

How would the sentence change if the teacher were male?

You would change both the noun and the pronoun:

• Malami / Malam = male teacher
• Feminine pronoun ta (“she”) → masculine ya (“he”)

So a typical version would be:

• Malam ya ce mu kawo zane na dabba ɗaya gobe zuwa aji.
  “The (male) teacher said we should bring a drawing of one animal tomorrow to class.”

Why do we have both Malama and ta? Isn’t that like saying “the teacher she said”?

In Hausa, the short subject pronoun (here ta) is normally required with the verb, even if you already mentioned the noun subject.

• Ta ce = “she said”
• Malama ta ce = literally “The (female) teacher, she said…”

The noun (Malama) is like a topic: “As for the teacher, she said…”.
You cannot normally drop ta and say ✗ Malama ce mu kawo… in this meaning. That would be ungrammatical and also mixes up a different use of ce (the copula “is”) with the verb “to say”.

What does ta ce literally mean, and how is ce being used?

In this sentence:

• ta = “she” (3rd person singular feminine subject pronoun, perfective)
• ce = the verb “to say” in the perfective (“said”)

So ta ce = “she said”.

A few points:

• Other persons: na ce (I said), ya ce (he said), sun ce (they said).
• Don’t confuse this ce (verb “say”) with the copula ce in sentences like:
  • Malama ce. = “She is a teacher.” (here ce = “is” after a feminine noun)
• You may also see cewa after verbs of saying/thinking:
  • Ta ce (cewa) za ta zo. = “She said (that) she will come.” In your sentence, cewa is just not expressed; we go straight to mu kawo….

What is the role of mu in ta ce mu kawo …? Why isn’t there an “us” anywhere?

Here mu is the subject pronoun “we” in the subjunctive/jussive mood. The pattern is:

• ta ce mu kawo …
  literally: “she said (that) we bring …”

In English we normally translate this as:

• “she said we should bring …”
• “she told us to bring …”

So:

• ta ce = “she said”
• mu kawo = “(that) we bring / we should bring”

There is no separate “us” object in Hausa; instead, Hausa structures this as “she said that we (should) bring…”, with mu as the subject of kawo.

Is mu kawo a kind of future tense, like “we will bring”?

No. Mu kawo is subjunctive / jussive, not a future tense.

• mu kawo ≈ “that we (should) bring”, “for us to bring”
• Time is supplied by gobe (“tomorrow”), not by a future marker.

Compare:

• Za mu kawo zane. = “We will bring a drawing.” (plain future statement)
• Ta ce mu kawo zane. = “She said we should bring a drawing.” (reported instruction / command)

So after ta ce (she said/told…), Hausa naturally uses mu + verb to express what we are supposed to do, not za mu.

What does kawo mean exactly, and how is it different from other “bring” verbs like zo da?

Kawo means “to bring (here)”, bringing something towards the speaker or the relevant place.

Roughly:

• kawo – bring (to this place / to class / to me)
• zo da X – “come with X”, also used as “bring X”:
  • Zo da littafinka. = “Come with your book / Bring your book.”
• ɗauko – “go and get, fetch”

In a classroom instruction, kawo is very natural:

• Malama ta ce mu kawo zane…
  “The teacher said we should bring a drawing…”

You could also hear zo da zane, but kawo is concise and common for “bring something (to class, to the meeting, etc.)”.

What does zane mean here? Could I also say hoto?

Zane has several related meanings: drawing, design/pattern, or even a piece of cloth/wrapper in some contexts. In this sentence it most naturally means:

• zane (na dabba) = “a drawing/picture of an animal”

Hoto is more like “picture/image/photo”, usually:

• hoto na dabba – an animal picture (often understood as a photo, but it can be any image)

So:

• If the assignment is to draw an animal, zane na dabba is ideal.
• If it’s okay to bring a photo or printed image, hoto na dabba also works.

Context (art class vs. bringing magazine photos) decides which is more appropriate.

What is na doing in zane na dabba ɗaya?

Here na is a genitive linker, roughly meaning “of”, joining two nouns:

• zane na dabba = “drawing of an animal”

This na is very common:

• gidan Malam = “the house of the teacher”
• sunan yarinya / suna na yarinya = “name of the girl”

Technically, Hausa has several linker forms (like na / n / ta / r) that agree with the first noun and change with sound structure, but for many learners it’s enough to remember:

• X na Y ≈ “X of Y”

So zane na dabba ɗaya is literally “drawing of one animal”.

How should I understand dabba ɗaya? Is it “one animal”, “an animal”, or “one each”?

Grammatically:

• dabba = “animal”
• ɗaya = “one”
• dabba ɗaya = “one animal” / “a single animal”

Notes:

• Numbers in Hausa usually come after the noun:
  littafi ɗaya (one book), motoci biyu (two cars).
• Bare dabba can already mean “an animal” in many contexts, but dabba ɗaya emphasizes exactly one.

In this classroom context, zane na dabba ɗaya is usually understood as each student bringing a drawing that shows one animal (not many animals in one picture). Whether it is “one animal each” or “one animal total” comes from context, not from the grammar alone, but in a school assignment it almost always means “each person: one animal”.

How do I pronounce the letter ɗ in ɗaya? Is it just “d”?

ɗ is not the same as plain d. It’s a different consonant:

• d – an ordinary d sound, like English d in do.
• ɗ – an implosive d: the tongue touches where you would say d, but there’s a slight inward “gulp” of air.

Practical tip for learners:

• If you can’t make the implosive yet, most speakers will still understand you if you use a normal d, but be aware that ɗ and d can distinguish words in Hausa, so eventually it’s worth practicing.

What does gobe mean, and where can I put it in the sentence?

Gobe means “tomorrow”.

In your sentence, it appears before the destination phrase:

• … zane na dabba ɗaya gobe zuwa aji.

You have some flexibility in placing time expressions in Hausa. All of these are possible, with slightly different emphasis:

• Gobe Malama ta ce mu kawo zane na dabba ɗaya zuwa aji.
  (“Tomorrow, the teacher said we should bring …”) – strong focus on tomorrow.
• Malama ta ce mu kawo zane na dabba ɗaya gobe zuwa aji.
  (as given)
• Malama ta ce mu kawo zane na dabba ɗaya zuwa aji gobe.
  (also heard, “to class tomorrow”)

They all keep the basic meaning; speakers often put gobe near the end or right after the main object.

What does zuwa aji mean exactly, and how is it different from a aji?

• zuwa = “to, towards” (direction/destination)
• aji = “class” (lesson / class group / classroom)
• zuwa aji = “to class” (as a destination)

So … gobe zuwa aji = “tomorrow to class”.

Contrast:

• a aji = “in/at class”
  • Muna a aji. = “We are in class.”

In your sentence, the teacher is telling students to bring something to class, so zuwa aji (direction) is the natural choice.