Learn Hardcore Hausa: Yara suna wasa da rairayi suna gina ƙaramin gida kusa da ruwa. - The children are playing with sand, building a small house near the water.

Repeating suna makes it clear that both wasa and gina are full verbs describing what the children are doing at that time. Hausa often repeats the progressive marker like this when listing simultaneous actions.

Could the sentence use only one suna, like Yara suna wasa da rairayi gina ƙaramin gida kusa da ruwa?

No, that would be ungrammatical or at least very odd.

In Hausa, each finite verb in a series normally needs its own tense/aspect marker. So you say:

Yara suna wasa da rairayi, suna gina ƙaramin gida… ✅
The children are playing with sand, (and) they are building a small house…

If you drop the second suna, gina would be left without a proper tense/aspect marker, which Hausa does not normally allow in this kind of sentence.

Where is the word for “they”? Is it only yara (“children”) or is it also inside suna?

There are actually two different ways “they” is expressed here:

Yara literally means “children” (a plural noun).
su- in suna is a 3rd person plural pronoun (“they”) built into the verb phrase.

So the sentence structure is basically:

Yara (children) suna (they-are) wasa… suna gina…

You can think of it as:

“The children, they are playing with sand; they are building a small house…”

This double marking (subject noun + subject pronoun) is normal in Hausa.

There is no word for “the” or “a” in the sentence. How does Hausa handle articles here?

Modern standard Hausa generally does not use separate words for “a/an” or “the” like English does. Instead, context tells you whether a noun is definite or indefinite.

Yara can mean “children,” “the children,” or “some children” depending on context.
ƙaramin gida can mean “a small house” or “the small house.”

In your sentence, English “the children” and “a small house” are just the most natural choices, but Hausa itself leaves articles unspoken.

Why is ƙaramin placed after gina but before gida, and what is the -n at the end?

Break it down:

gina = to build
ƙarami = small (masculine singular adjective)
gida = house

When an adjective modifies a noun, Hausa uses a linking consonant -n (or -r / -n depending on the word) attached to the adjective:

ƙarami + -n + gida → ƙaramin gida = “small house”

Two key points:

The noun comes last in the noun phrase:
- ƙaramin gida = small house, literally small-LINK house
-n is not a separate word; it’s a linking element that connects the adjective to the noun.

What exactly does da mean in wasa da rairayi and in kusa da ruwa?

Da is a very common word with several related uses. In your sentence it appears twice:

wasa da rairayi
- Here da means “with”:
  - wasa da rairayi = “playing with sand”
kusa da ruwa
- Here da links kusa (“near”) to the thing it is near, so it’s like “near to”:
  - kusa da ruwa = “near the water”

So in this sentence:

da ≈ “with” (instruments/companions)
da ≈ “to” (after kusa, to mark what something is near)

In other contexts, da can also mean “and” when linking two nouns (e.g. yara da manya = children and adults), but here it’s not “and,” it’s “with / to.”

Is wasa a verb (“to play”) or a noun (“play”)? Why isn’t it yin wasa?

Wasa is basically a noun meaning “play, playing, a game.”
The more “complete” verbal phrase is:

yi wasa = “do play / play”

In the progressive, the fully explicit form would be:

Yara suna yin wasa da rairayi…
The children are doing playing with sand…

In everyday speech, the yi and the -n of yin are often dropped in this kind of context, so you simply get:

Yara suna wasa da rairayi…

Learners can treat suna wasa as the natural way to say “(they) are playing.”
Just be aware that underneath it, the pattern is suna yin wasa (“they are doing play”).

What does rairayi mean exactly, and why does it look like a plural even though English just has “sand”?

Rairayi is the normal Hausa word for “sand” (especially fine sand, sand grains).
Grammatically, its form is plural-like / reduplicated, but in English we usually translate it as an uncountable mass noun:

rairayi = “sand” (literally something like “many grains of sand”)

So:

wasa da rairayi = playing with sand

You don’t need to treat it as countable in English; just learn rairayi as the standard word for sand in this kind of context.

How do you pronounce ƙaramin and what is the difference between ƙ and k in Hausa?

Hausa distinguishes between:

k = a normal voiceless [k] sound (like English k in kite).
ƙ = an implosive k (written with a hooked K).

To pronounce ƙ:

Start as if you were going to say g or k,
Slightly pull the back of your tongue inward and downward,
Then release it with a softer “inward” feel of airflow, not a strong burst of air.

In ƙaramin:

ƙa uses this special implosive k sound, not the plain k.
ƙaramin is roughly [k’aramɪn], with a short a in the first syllable and the stress usually on the first syllable.

Learners often approximate ƙ with a plain k at first; people will usually still understand, but it’s good to know there is a contrast between k and ƙ.

What does kusa da mean, and is there a difference between kusa da ruwa and a kusa da ruwa?

kusa = near, close
kusa da X = near X / close to X

So:

kusa da ruwa = “near the water / close to the water.”

You can also say:

a kusa da ruwa

Here a is a general locative preposition like “in / at / on”. Adding a makes the location slightly more explicit:

kusa da ruwa → literally “near to water”
a kusa da ruwa → “(located) at near to water”

In day‑to‑day speech, both are common and often interchangeable. In many contexts, kusa da ruwa alone is perfectly natural, as in your sentence.

Could the sentence be rearranged as Yara suna gina ƙaramin gida da rairayi kusa da ruwa? Would that change the meaning?

Yes, you could say:

Yara suna gina ƙaramin gida da rairayi kusa da ruwa.

This would be understood more as:

“The children are building a small house with sand near the water.”

Subtle difference:

Original:
Yara suna wasa da rairayi suna gina ƙaramin gida kusa da ruwa.
→ Two activities:
- They are playing with sand,
- and (while doing that) they are building a small house.
Rearranged:
Yara suna gina ƙaramin gida da rairayi kusa da ruwa.
→ Focuses on the building action, and the sand is now clearly the material they are using to build.

So the original emphasizes play plus building as part of the play; the rearranged version emphasizes building a sand house as the main activity.