Learn Hardcore Hausa: Yara suna sha ruwa mai sanyi a bakin kogi. - The children are drinking cold water at the riverbank.

Yara suna sha ruwa… – the children are drinking water (now / currently).
Yara sun sha ruwa… – the children drank / have drunk water (completed action).

You only drop forms like suna in certain more advanced structures (e.g. in some subordinate or relative clauses), not in a simple main sentence like this.

What is the difference between suna sha and sun sha?

They express different aspects (time/shape of the action):

suna sha = progressive / ongoing
- Yara suna sha ruwa. – “The children are drinking water (now).”
sun sha = perfective / completed
- Yara sun sha ruwa. – “The children drank water.” / “The children have drunk water.”

So suna focuses on an action in progress, while sun focuses on a finished action.

I’ve also seen suna shan ruwa instead of suna sha ruwa. Which is correct?

You will often see and hear:

Yara suna shan ruwa.

Here shan is sha + a linking -n that commonly appears when a verb like sha is directly followed by its object (ruwa).

Both:

suna sha ruwa
suna shan ruwa

are understandable, and learners will hear both in real speech.

However, many teachers and grammar books prefer suna shan ruwa as the more “textbook” form in this structure. It’s a very common pattern:

ina cin abinci – I am eating food (from ci “eat”)
suna shan ruwa – they are drinking water (from sha “drink”)

So your sentence is fine for learning, but you should be ready to recognize the shan form as very common and often more idiomatic.

Why is “cold water” expressed as ruwa mai sanyi and not the other way round?

In Hausa, descriptive elements normally come after the noun they describe. So you get:

ruwa mai sanyi – cold water
literally: “water that has coldness”

Here’s what is happening:

ruwa – water
sanyi – cold / coldness (a noun)
mai – “having / possessing”

So mai sanyi literally means “having cold(ness).” Put after ruwa, the whole phrase ruwa mai sanyi means “water that has cold” → “cold water.”

This pattern is very productive:

mutum mai ƙarfi – a strong person (person having strength)
gida mai tsada – an expensive house (house having expense)
abinci mai zafi – hot food (food having heat)

What does bakin kogi literally mean, and why does it translate as “river bank”?

Literally:

baki – mouth
bakin – mouth-of / edge-of (baki + linking -n)
kogi – river

So bakin kogi is “the mouth/edge of the river.”
By extension, it means the edge/bank/shore of the river, i.e. “the river bank.”

The word baki is used more broadly for an edge, border, or side of something, not just a human mouth. For example:

bakin hanya – the roadside / edge of the road
bakin teku – the seashore / edge of the sea
bakin ƙofa – the doorway / threshold (edge of the door)

So a bakin kogi = at the river’s edge → “at the river bank.”

How does the preposition a work in a bakin kogi? Does it mean “at”, “in”, or “by”?

A is a very general locative preposition. It often corresponds to “at”, “in”, or “on” depending on context:

a gida – at home
a kasuwa – at the market
a hanya – on the road / in the street

In a bakin kogi, it is best understood as “at/by the river bank.”

If you wanted to be more specific:

cikin kogi – in the river (inside the water)
kan kogi – on top of the river (e.g. on a bridge), depending on context

But a by itself is neutral and widely used for “at / in (a place).”

Why is there no word like “the” in the Hausa sentence? How do I know if yara means “children” or “the children”?

Hausa does not have a separate free-standing article like English “the” or “a.”
Instead, definiteness is shown by:

context (what is already known or mentioned)
little suffixes like -n / -r in some nouns
demonstratives like nan (“this/these (here)”) and others

In this sentence, yara by itself can mean either:

“children” (in general), or
“the children” (if it’s clear from context which children).

If the speaker wants to make definiteness very explicit, they might say something like:

Yaran suna sha ruwa… – the children are drinking water (those particular children).
Yaran nan suna sha ruwa… – these children are drinking water.

But in many everyday contexts, yara alone, as in your sentence, is naturally understood as “the children” if the context makes it obvious.

What is the singular form of yara, and does the verb form suna agree with it?

Yes, suna agrees in number with yara.

yaro – (male) child / boy
yarinya – (female) child / girl
yara – children (plural, can be mixed or unspecified gender)

Because yara is plural, you use the 3rd person plural progressive form suna:

Yara suna sha ruwa. – The children are drinking water.

If the subject were singular, you would change the verb form:

Yaro yana sha ruwa. – The boy is drinking water.
Yarinya tana sha ruwa. – The girl is drinking water.
Ina sha ruwa. – I am drinking water.
Kana sha ruwa. – You (sg.) are drinking water.
Muna sha ruwa. – We are drinking water.

So, suna matches the plural subject yara.

Does sha only mean “to drink water,” or can it be used more broadly?

Sha basically means “to drink / consume (a liquid),” but its usage is broader than just water:

Drinking liquids
- sha ruwa – drink water
- sha lemo – drink soda / soft drink
Taking medicine
- sha magani – take medicine
Smoking
- shan taba – smoke tobacco / cigarettes
  (literally “drinking tobacco,” by extension “smoking”)
Experiencing something (often negative)
- shan wahala – to suffer hardship
- shan kashi (colloquial) – to get humiliated / badly defeated

So in your sentence, sha ruwa is the straightforward “drink water,” but you’ll meet sha in many other fixed expressions.