Ma'aikata suna gina sabon bene kusa da makarantar firamare.

Word by word, the sentence breaks down like this:

So a more literal rendering would be:
“The workers are building a new building near the primary school.”

• Ma'aikata = workers (plural).
• The singular is ma'aikaci = a worker.

Pattern (simplified):

• ma'aikaci → ma'aikata
  worker → workers

So:

• Ma'aikaci yana gina sabon bene…
  A worker is building a new building…

• Ma'aikata suna gina sabon bene…
  Workers are building a new building…

Ma'aikata is pronounced roughly:

• ma-ʔai-ka-ta (mah–[glottal stop]–eye–kah–tah)

The apostrophe ' in Hausa normally marks a glottal stop or separation between vowels.
Here it keeps ma + aiki from fusing into something like mai.

So:

• Without the apostrophe you might try to say something like maikata in one smooth syllable.
• With the apostrophe, you clearly separate the vowels: ma + ' + aikata.

When you say it, briefly “catch” your breath between ma and ai: ma [stop] ai.

Suna does two things at once:

1. It carries the subject pronoun su = they.
2. It carries the progressive / continuous aspect marker na.

So suna gina literally corresponds to “they are building” (not just “they build” in general, and not “they built”).

Compare:

• Suna gina sabon bene.
  They are building a new building (right now / currently).

• Sun gina sabon bene.
  They built / have built a new building (it’s already done).

• Za su gina sabon bene.
  They will build a new building.

The main verb here is in its bare (dictionary) form: gina = to build / building.

In Hausa, for the progressive you typically use:

• subject + na
  • verb
    or the contracted forms: suna gina, yana gina, ina gina, etc.

Suke gina is also possible, but it’s more associated with relative/contrastive contexts, often with –ke:

• Ma'aikatan da suke gina sabon bene…
  The workers who are building the new building…

In a simple main clause describing what is happening now, suna gina is the normal, straightforward choice:

• Ma'aikata suna gina…
  The workers are building…

In many cases, Hausa adjectives come after the noun, e.g.:

• gida babba – big house
• mutum mai ƙarfi – a strong person

But some adjectives, especially ones like sab(o) “new” and tsoho “old”, often appear before the noun with a linking -n / -r:

• sabon gida – new house
• tsohon gida – old house

In this sentence:

• sabo (new) + -n (linker) + bene (building)
  → sabon bene – new building

The -n works like a linker meaning roughly “new-of building”, but in English we just say “new building”.

Note: If the noun were feminine, you would see sabuwa instead, e.g.:

• sabuwa mota – new car (feminine noun mota)

Bene can mean:

1. A (multi‑storey) building
2. A floor / storey of a building

Which meaning you get depends on context.

Here, sabon bene kusa da makarantar firamare is most naturally understood as:

• “a new building near the primary school”,

because we’re talking about something located near the school, not specifically which floor of a building.

If you wanted to be very clear that you mean floor/storey, you might clarify with context, e.g.:

• Suna gina sabon bene na biyu.
  They are building a new second floor.

Roughly:

• gida
  – house, home, dwelling
  – often any kind of home, not necessarily multi‑storey

• bene
  – multi‑storey building
  – or a storey / floor of such a building

So:

• sabuwar gida – a new house / home
• sabon bene – a new building (often imagined as something more like an office block, school building, etc.)

kusa da means “near / close to”.

• kusa = near, close
• da = with/to (here, part of the prepositional phrase)

In location phrases, Hausa very often uses kusa da together:

• Gidana yana kusa da kasuwa.
  My house is near the market.

In your sentence:

• kusa da makarantar firamare
  = near the primary school

You can see kusa alone in some contexts (e.g. as an adverb: Come close! = Zo kusa!), but when you say “near something”, you normally use kusa da + [noun].

This is the Hausa genitive / linker construction, used for “X of Y”, “Y‑school”, etc.

• makaranta – school
• firamare – primary (as in primary school)

To say “primary school” (literally, “school of primary”), Hausa attaches a linker -n / -r to the first noun:

• makarantar firamare
  = school‑(of) primary
  = primary school

The form of the linker depends on the final sound of the noun:

• gida → gidan malam – the teacher’s house
• makaranta → makarantar firamare – primary school
• wuri → wurin aiki – place of work

So makarantar firamare is a fixed, natural way of saying “primary school.”

Firamare is a loanword, ultimately from English “primary” (via colonial education vocabulary).

• In makarantar firamare, it functions like “primary” as an adjective describing the kind of school.

• It can also stand on its own in context to mean primary school as an institution, e.g.:

  • Ya na aiki a firamare.
    He works at a primary school.

But the fully explicit phrase is makarantar firamare.

Use different aspect/tense markers with gina:

1. Present / progressive (your sentence)

   • Ma'aikata suna gina sabon bene kusa da makarantar firamare.
     The workers are building a new building near the primary school.

2. Past / completed (they built / have built)

   • Ma'aikata sun gina sabon bene kusa da makarantar firamare.
     The workers built / have built a new building near the primary school.

3. Future

   • Ma'aikata za su gina sabon bene kusa da makarantar firamare.
     The workers will build a new building near the primary school.

So the main changes are in suna → sun / za su; gina itself stays the same.

A natural negative for this progressive pattern is:

• Ma'aikata ba sa gina sabon bene kusa da makarantar firamare.
  The workers are not building a new building near the primary school.

Key points:

• suna gina (they are building)
  → ba sa gina (they are not building / they don’t build)

You often see ba … ba bracketing longer sentences, but in this very common progressive/habitual negative, the final ba is often dropped in everyday speech:

• Full form (more formal/emphatic):
  Ma'aikata ba sa gina sabon bene kusa da makarantar firamare ba.

• Common, shorter spoken form:
  Ma'aikata ba sa gina sabon bene kusa da makarantar firamare.

Yes, that’s grammatical:

• Suna gina sabon bene kusa da makarantar firamare.
  They are building a new building near the primary school.

Hausa, like English, allows you to omit the full noun subject if it is already clear from context.
However:

• If you want to introduce who is doing the action, you should keep Ma'aikata.
• Once it is clear you are talking about the workers, you can continue with just suna…, suke…, etc.

So:

• First mention:
  Ma'aikata suna gina sabon bene kusa da makarantar firamare.

• Later in the conversation, you could just say:
  Suna kusan gamawa. – They are almost finished.