Learn Hardcore Hausa: Musa ya lashe gasa ta Hausa saboda ya yi karatu sosai. - Musa won the Hausa competition because he studied a lot.

Marks the subject:
- Musa ya lashe... → Musa is the subject, and ya shows “he (Musa) did the action in past/perfective”.
- ...saboda ya yi karatu sosai. → The subject is still “he (Musa)”, and ya again marks this.
Marks tense/aspect (perfective):
With most verbs, ya + verb commonly expresses a completed action in the past (perfective).
- ya lashe ≈ “he won / he has won”
- ya yi karatu ≈ “he studied / he has studied”

So you don’t drop ya the way you might drop “he” in English after mentioning “Musa” once; Hausa needs that subject pronoun before the verb.

Why is the verb lashe used for “won” instead of ci, which I’ve seen mean “eat / win”?

Hausa actually has several verbs that can be translated as “to win,” and their usage depends on nuance and style.

ci literally means “to eat,” but in extended meaning it can also be “to defeat / to win” in some contexts:
- Mun ci su a wasan ƙwallo. – “We beat them in the football match.”
lashe is very commonly used specifically in the sense of “to win (a prize, award, competition, etc.)”:
- ya lashe gasa – “he won the competition”
- ta lashe kyauta – “she won a prize”

In the sentence Musa ya lashe gasa ta Hausa, lashe is appropriate because it’s about winning a competition or contest, not just defeating an opponent in a general way. It sounds idiomatic and natural for a formal “competition win.”

What exactly does gasa mean here?

gasa in this context means “competition, contest, tournament.”

So gasa ta Hausa is “a Hausa competition” (e.g. a Hausa language contest, a speech contest in Hausa, a quiz in Hausa, etc.).

Note that gasa can also mean “to roast/grill” as a verb in other contexts, but here it’s a noun meaning “competition.” The meaning is made clear by context and by the fact that it’s followed by ta Hausa, which modifies it.

How does ta Hausa work grammatically in gasa ta Hausa?

ta here is a possessive/associative linker that roughly corresponds to English “of”.

gasa ta Hausa = “competition of Hausa / Hausa competition”

Hausa uses a set of linkers (na / ta) to show “X of Y” relationships:

na is generally used with masculine or some “default” nouns.
ta is used with feminine nouns.

Because gasa is grammatically feminine, you use ta, not na:

gasa ta Hausa – Hausa competition
littafi na Hausa – Hausa book (because littafi is masculine, you use na)

So ta is agreeing with gasa, not with Hausa.

Why is it ta and not na in gasa ta Hausa? How do I know gasa is feminine?

Hausa nouns have grammatical gender (masculine or feminine), and this affects which linker you use:

na for masculine (and some default cases)
ta for feminine

gasa is one of those nouns that is treated as feminine, so it takes ta:

gasa ta Hausa – Hausa competition

You mostly learn noun genders through exposure and practice; they are not always predictable from spelling or meaning.
Other common feminine nouns that take ta include:

mota ta Malam – the teacher’s car
ƙofa ta gida – the door of the house

Remember: the ta/na agrees with the head noun (gasa), not with the following word (Hausa).

What does saboda mean, and where does it go in the sentence?

saboda means “because” or “due to / because of.”

In this sentence:

Musa ya lashe gasa ta Hausa – “Musa won the Hausa competition”
saboda – “because”
ya yi karatu sosai. – “he studied very hard.”

So the full structure is:

[Main clause] Musa ya lashe gasa ta Hausa
[Reason clause] saboda ya yi karatu sosai.

This is a natural and common order in Hausa: result/effect first, then the reason with saboda.
You can also sometimes start with saboda and the cause, then follow with the result, but the form in your sentence is extremely common and perfectly natural.

Why is Musa only mentioned once? In the second part it’s just ya yi karatu sosai. Can the subject be dropped in Hausa?

In Hausa, you cannot drop the subject pronoun before a finite verb the way you sometimes do in English. The short pronoun must be there.

In the sentence:

First clause: Musa ya lashe gasa ta Hausa
- Musa is the full noun.
- ya is the short subject pronoun (“he”), required by the grammar.
Second clause: ...saboda ya yi karatu sosai.
- Here, Musa is understood as the subject, but you still must say ya before the verb.

You could not say: *saboda yi karatu sosai (“because studied very hard”). That would be ungrammatical. Hausa requires something like:

ya yi (he did)
ta yi (she did)
sun yi (they did), etc.

So the full noun Musa can be omitted when clear from context, but the short pronoun ya cannot be omitted.

What does yi karatu literally mean? Why not just a single verb for “to study”?

yi karatu is a verb + noun expression that functions as “to study / to read / to pursue studies.” Literally:

yi – “to do”
karatu – “reading, study, studies, schooling”

So ya yi karatu literally is “he did study/studies,” but idiomatically it equals “he studied.”

This kind of construction (using yi + a verbal noun) is very common in Hausa:

yi magana – “to speak / talk” (lit. “do speech”)
yi wasa – “to play” (lit. “do play”)
yi tunani – “to think” (lit. “do thought”)

So yi karatu is the usual way to say “to study.”

How should I understand sosai in ya yi karatu sosai?

sosai is an intensifier meaning roughly “very, a lot, intensely, really well.”

In ya yi karatu sosai, it modifies yi karatu and tells you how he studied:

ya yi karatu sosai ≈
- “he studied a lot”
- “he studied very hard”
- “he studied really well / very seriously”

Depending on context, all of those are good translations.

sosai is often used after verbs and adjectives to intensify them:

ya gaji sosai – “he’s very tired”
sun yi ƙoƙari sosai – “they tried very hard”

Is ya lashe specifically past tense? Could it also mean “he has won”?

ya lashe is in the perfective aspect, which typically refers to a completed action. In many contexts, this corresponds to English simple past or present perfect.

So Musa ya lashe gasa ta Hausa can usually be translated as:

“Musa won the Hausa competition” (simple past), or
“Musa has won the Hausa competition” (present perfect),

depending on the surrounding context in English.

What matters most in Hausa is that the action is completed, not the subtle English tense distinction. If you wanted a non-completed or ongoing sense, you’d use a different form, e.g.:

Musa yana lashe gasa – “Musa is (in the process of) winning competitions” (more habitual/ongoing)

But ya lashe in your sentence is clearly a completed event.

Could I say Musa ya lashe gasa ta Hausa domin ya yi karatu sosai instead of saboda? What’s the difference?

You can say domin instead of saboda, and it’s grammatical, but there is a slight nuance:

saboda – the default, very common “because”, shows a factual reason or cause.
domin – often has a more purpose/aim flavor: “in order to, so that,” though it can also appear as “because” in some contexts.

In your sentence:

Musa ya lashe gasa ta Hausa saboda ya yi karatu sosai.
→ Neutral, causal: “Musa won the Hausa competition because he studied hard.”
Musa ya lashe gasa ta Hausa domin ya yi karatu sosai.
→ Sounds a bit off, because it suggests he won in order to study hard, which reverses the natural cause–effect relation.

domin fits better when the following action is the goal:

Ya yi karatu domin ya lashe gasa.
→ “He studied in order to win the competition.”

So here saboda is the right, natural choice.

Is the word order fixed as [result] ... saboda [reason] or can I put the reason first in Hausa?

You can put the reason first, but it changes the structure slightly and sounds more marked. For example:

Saboda ya yi karatu sosai, Musa ya lashe gasa ta Hausa.
→ “Because he studied hard, Musa won the Hausa competition.”

This is grammatically fine and understandable. However, the more frequent conversational pattern is:

main/result clause first
then saboda
- reason clause

So:

Musa ya lashe gasa ta Hausa saboda ya yi karatu sosai.

is extremely natural, especially in speech and simple narrative. Both orders are possible; the original is simply the more typical.