Learn Hardcore Hausa: Uwa ta ce tururi daga ruwan shayi yana da zafi sosai. - Mother said the steam from the tea water is very hot.

Here cewa corresponds to “that”. Both versions are correct; Hausa usually prefers the shorter one without cewa unless there’s a special reason to emphasize the clause.

Why is it ta ce and not ya ce?

Hausa verbs agree with the grammatical gender of the subject.

Uwa (mother) is grammatically feminine, so you use the feminine 3rd person singular marker ta:
- Uwa ta ce… = Mother (she) said…
Ya ce would be used with a masculine subject:
- Baba ya ce… = Father (he) said…

So ta ce means she said, matching Uwa.

What exactly is ta doing in ta ce – is it a pronoun or a tense marker?

It does both jobs at once.

In forms like ta ce, ta is:

the subject pronoun (she), and
the perfective (completed action) marker attached to the verb.

So:

na ce = I said
ka ce = you (m.sg) said
ta ce = she said
ya ce = he said
mun ce = we said
sun ce = they said

You don’t add another separate word for “did”; the form ta ce already means she did say / she said.

Could I say Uwa ta faɗa tururi daga ruwan shayi yana da zafi sosai instead of ta ce?

Not like that. You need to be careful with faɗa.

ce = to say (introducing what was said)
faɗa (or faɗi) = to say / to tell, often with someone being told

If you want to use faɗa with a clause, you’d normally do:

Uwa ta faɗa cewa tururi daga ruwan shayi yana da zafi sosai.
= Mother said/told (that) the steam from the tea is very hot.

Or, if she told someone:

Uwa ta faɗa wa ɗanta cewa…
= Mother told her son that…

So ta ce… is the simplest and most natural here.
Uwa ta faɗa tururi… without cewa or an indirect object sounds ungrammatical.

Is tururi daga ruwan shayi literally “steam from the water of tea”? Why not just “steam from tea”?

Yes, literally it is:

tururi = steam
ruwan shayi = water of tea (i.e. tea as a liquid)
tururi daga ruwan shayi = steam from the tea (liquid)

In Hausa, ruwan shayi is a common way to refer to the drink itself – the cup of tea, not the dry leaves. You could also say:

tururi daga shayi
tururin shayi

and people will understand you, but ruwan shayi very clearly means “the tea drink” and sounds very natural in this context.

Why do we use daga here? Could we use na instead?

daga means “from” in the sense of source or origin:

tururi daga ruwan shayi = steam from the tea (coming out of it)

na (or -n/-r/-n as a linker) usually shows possession or close association:

tururin ruwan shayi = the steam of the tea / the tea’s steam

So:

daga emphasizes the source (“steam coming out from the tea”).
na/-n makes it more like a noun phrase (“the tea’s steam”).

Both are possible depending on what you want to emphasize; your sentence chooses the “coming from” idea, so daga is ideal.

Why does it say yana and not tana when referring to tururi?

Again, this is gender agreement.

tururi (steam) is grammatically masculine, so you use ya → yana (he/it is).
If the subject were feminine, you’d use ta → tana.

Examples:

Tururi yana da zafi sosai.
The steam (masc.) is very hot.

Compare with a feminine noun:

Mota tana da tsada sosai.
The car (fem.) is very expensive.

So yana matches the masculine noun tururi.

What does yana da zafi sosai mean word-for-word?

Breakdown:

ya-na = he/it is (continuous or stative)
da = with / has
zafi = heat, hotness
sosai = very, a lot, extremely

Literal sense: “it is with heat very much” or “it has a lot of heat”.

Natural English: “it is very hot.”

In Hausa, yana da + [noun of quality] is a common way to describe a property:

yana da karfi sosai = he is very strong
ruwan nan yana da sanyi = this water is cold

Could we just say tururi daga ruwan shayi ya zafi sosai instead?

The most standard alternative would be:

Tururi daga ruwan shayi ya yi zafi sosai.

Here:

ya yi zafi sosai = it was/became/is very hot (using yi “do/make” with zafi)

You might hear ya zafi sosai in speech, but ya yi zafi sosai is clearer and more standard.

So you have two natural options:

…yana da zafi sosai. = it has a lot of heat / is very hot
…ya yi zafi sosai. = it (has) got very hot / is very hot

Your original yana da zafi sosai is perfectly good and common.

What part of speech is zafi here – a noun or an adjective?

Grammatically it is a noun meaning “heat, hotness”, but Hausa often uses such nouns in ways that correspond to adjectives in English.

Common patterns:

yana da zafi
= it has heat → it is hot
ya yi zafi
= it did/made heat → it was/became hot
ruwa mai zafi
= water having heat → hot water

So zafi is a noun, but in structures like these it functions as part of an adjectival or verbal expression.

Where should I put sosai in the sentence? Could I say sosai yana da zafi?

Normally sosai comes after the word or phrase it intensifies:

yana da zafi sosai
ya yi zafi sosai
ta gaji sosai = she is very tired

Putting sosai at the beginning like sosai yana da zafi is unusual and sounds off, unless you restructure the sentence for special emphasis, e.g.:

Sosai yake da zafi. (still quite marked, and you’d usually add more context/intonation)

For everyday speech, keep sosai at the end: …yana da zafi sosai.

Is Uwa the normal way to say “Mum/Mom”, or is it more like a formal “mother”?

Uwa is the basic word for “mother” in Hausa and is fairly neutral. In actual family talk and in some regions, people often prefer more informal or dialectal terms, like:

Mama
Inna / Innā (varies by region)

In a narrative or general statement, Uwa ta ce… (“Mother said…”) is completely natural.
If you were reporting your own mum speaking, you might also hear:

Mama ta ce…
Inna ta ce…

So uwa is not stiffly formal, just the general dictionary word “mother”.

Why is there no word for “the” in tururi daga ruwan shayi or before Uwa?

Hausa does not have a direct equivalent of the English “the”. Definiteness is usually shown by:

context
possessives (e.g. uwata = my mother)
demonstratives (e.g. ruwan shayin nan = this tea)

So:

Uwa ta ce…
In context: The mother said…
tururi daga ruwan shayi
In context: the steam from the tea

English needs “the”; Hausa just relies on context to show that we mean particular, known things.

How would the sentence change if the subject were plural, like “The mothers said the steam from the tea is very hot”?

You change the subject noun and the verb agreement:

Uwa ta ce… → Uwaye sun ce…

Full sentence:

Uwaye sun ce tururi daga ruwan shayi yana da zafi sosai.
= The mothers said the steam from the tea is very hot.

Notes:

Uwaye = mothers (plural of uwa)
sun ce = they said (3rd person plural perfective)
tururi is still singular and masculine, so you keep yana da zafi sosai (not suna).