Breakdown of Tafiya zuwa ƙauye tana daɗi sosai.
Questions & Answers about Tafiya zuwa ƙauye tana daɗi sosai.
Word-by-word:
- Tafiya – going, trip, journey (a noun / verbal noun from the verb tafi “to go”)
- zuwa – to, towards (a preposition of direction)
- ƙauye – a village
- tana – she/it is (3rd person feminine subject pronoun ta
- continuous/durative marker na)
- daɗi – pleasantness, sweetness, fun, enjoyment
- sosai – very, really, a lot (intensifier)
Very literal idea: “A trip/going to (a) village, it-is pleasant very.”
Natural English: “Going to the village is very enjoyable.”
In Hausa, a normal finite clause with a verb almost always uses a short subject pronoun before the verb, even if there is a full noun phrase subject.
So you typically get:
- Musa ya tafi. – Musa he-went. → “Musa went.”
- Rana tana zafi. – Sun it-is-hot. → “The sun is hot.”
In your sentence:
- Tafiya zuwa ƙauye – “Going to the village” (subject/topic)
- tana daɗi sosai – “it is very pleasant”
The ta- in tana is not a second, extra subject in meaning; it is the required agreement pronoun that carries tense/aspect with the verb or predicate. You cannot normally say:
- ✗ *Tafiya zuwa ƙauye daɗi sosai. (ungrammatical)
You need the pronoun + aspect:
- Tafiya zuwa ƙauye tana daɗi sosai. ✔️
Hausa has grammatical gender (masculine and feminine), and the subject pronoun must agree in gender with the noun.
- yana = ya (3sg masculine “he/it”) + na (durative) → “he/it is (masc)”
- tana = ta (3sg feminine “she/it”) + na → “she/it is (fem)”
The noun tafiyà is grammatically feminine, so you must use tana:
- Tafiya zuwa ƙauye tana daɗi sosai. – “Going to the village is very enjoyable.”
Compare:
- Littafi yana daɗi sosai. – “The book is very enjoyable (interesting to read).”
(littafi “book” is masculine → yana)
Many nouns ending in -a (like tafiyà, mota “car”, rana “sun/day”) are feminine and require tana rather than yana.
Tafiya is a verbal noun (also used as a regular noun). It comes from the verb tafi – “to go, to leave”.
- Verb: ya tafi – “he went”
- Verbal noun / noun: tafiyà – “going, trip, journey, travel”
In your sentence, tafiyà is functioning like a noun subject:
- Tafiya zuwa ƙauye – “(the act of) going to the village”
Some common patterns:
- Ina son tafiya. – “I like traveling / going.”
- Ya yi tafiya. – “He made a trip / He travelled.”
- Tafiya zuwa ƙauye tana daɗi sosai. – “Going to the village is very enjoyable.”
Zuwa is a preposition of direction, meaning “to / towards”. Here it links the movement noun tafiyà with its destination ƙauye:
- tafiyà zuwa ƙauye – “a trip (going) to a village”
If you drop zuwa, you do not get normal Hausa:
- ✗ *Tafiya ƙauye tana daɗi sosai. – Wrong / sounds like “village’s trip” or just ungrammatical.
So you need zuwa here. Other directional prepositions you might meet:
- daga – from (e.g. tafiyà daga ƙauye – “a trip from the village”)
- ta – through / via (e.g. tafiyà ta ƙauye – “a trip via the village”)
As it stands, without any definite marking or possessive, it most naturally expresses a general statement:
- “Going to the village (in general) is very enjoyable.”
If you want to talk about a particular trip, you usually make the noun phrase more specific, for example:
- Tafiyar mu zuwa ƙauye ta yi daɗi sosai.
– “Our trip to the village was very enjoyable.”
Here:
- tafiyar mu – our trip (possessed, specific)
- ta yi daɗi sosai – “it did/become pleasant very” → “was very enjoyable.”
Daɗi is very common and flexible. Literally it is “sweetness, pleasantness, enjoyment”, and it often works like a stative verb “to be pleasant / tasty / nice / fun”.
Some examples:
- Abincin nan yana daɗi. – “This food is tasty.”
- Barci yana daɗi. – “Sleeping is pleasant / feels good.”
- Ruwa sanyi yake, ba ya daɗi wanka. – “The water is cold; bathing is not pleasant.”
In your sentence:
- tana daɗi sosai – “it is very pleasant / really fun.”
So daɗi covers ideas like tasty, enjoyable, comfortable, fun, nice, depending on the context.
Sosai is an intensifying adverb meaning “very, really, a lot, extremely”.
Position:
It normally comes after the adjective or stative verb it modifies:
- tana daɗi sosai – “it is very pleasant”
- suna gajiye sosai – “they are very tired”
Other related intensifiers:
- ƙwarai – very, extremely
- matuƙa – extremely, greatly
- ƙwarai-ƙwarai / sosai-sosai – “very, very”, extra emphasis
So sosai here simply strengthens daɗi: “very enjoyable” / “really fun”.
To negate this kind of sentence, you use ba … ba around the subject pronoun and drop the -na part of tana:
Positive:
- Tafiya zuwa ƙauye tana daɗi sosai.
– “Going to the village is very enjoyable.”
Negative:
- Tafiya zuwa ƙauye ba ta daɗi sosai ba.
– “Going to the village is not very enjoyable.”
Structure of the negative part:
- ba … ba – the negative “frame”
- ta – 3sg feminine subject pronoun (matching tafiyà)
- daɗi sosai – “very enjoyable”
So the tana becomes just ta inside ba … ba.
Hausa distinguishes plain stops (k, d) from special “glottalic” ones (ƙ, ɗ):
ƙ (with dot below) – a glottalised / ejective k
- In ƙauye, it’s roughly like a stronger k at the start of “cow-yeah” (≈ KOW-yeh), with a little extra “pop” in the throat.
- Many learners just pronounce it as a clear k; natives will still understand you.
ɗ (with dot below) – a glottalic/implosive d
- In daɗi, it’s like a d, but pronounced a bit “heavier” and more deliberate, sometimes with a slight inward movement of air.
- Approximating it with a normal English d (≈ DAH-dee) is usually fine at beginner level.
Spelling-wise, the dot is important in Hausa orthography: ƙ / ɗ can distinguish different words from k / d.
You mainly just pluralize ƙauye to ƙauyuka (“villages”):
- Tafiya zuwa ƙauyuka tana daɗi sosai.
– “Going to (the) villages is very enjoyable.”
Notes:
- ƙauye – a village
- ƙauyuka – villages
- The subject is still tafiyà (feminine), so the agreement remains tana, not yana.