Tsaro yana da muhimmanci sosai a makaranta.

to be

Breakdown of Tsaro yana da muhimmanci sosai a makaranta.

• sosai: very
• da: with
• a: at

Questions & Answers about Tsaro yana da muhimmanci sosai a makaranta.

What is the literal meaning and structure of “Tsaro yana da muhimmanci sosai a makaranta.”?

Broken down word by word:

• tsaro – safety, security
• yana – he/it is (3rd person singular masculine in the “progressive”/imperfective form: ya + na → yana)
• da – with / has
• muhimmanci – importance
• sosai – very, really, a lot
• a – in / at
• makaranta – school

A very literal gloss would be:
“Safety it-is with importance very at school.”

Natural English: “Safety is very important at school.”
So Hausa is literally saying “Safety has a lot of importance at school.”

How does “yana da” work here, and isn’t “da” usually “and”?

In Hausa, da is very flexible. Common meanings:

• “and” (A da B – A and B)
• “with”
• As part of the pattern X yana da Y = “X has Y”

In “Tsaro yana da muhimmanci”:

• yana = “it is” (continuous/imperfective form of “to be” for a masculine noun)
• da = “with / having”

So “yana da muhimmanci” literally means “it has importance”, and idiomatically means “it is important.”

This yana da + noun structure is a very common way of expressing that something has a quality: