Breakdown of Likitanmu yana nuna tausayi sosai ga yara masu ciwo.
Questions & Answers about Likitanmu yana nuna tausayi sosai ga yara masu ciwo.
Likitanmu means “our doctor.”
It’s made of three parts:
- likita – doctor
- -n – a linking/genitive consonant (often written as part of the word)
- mu – we / our
So:
- likita + n + mu → likitanmu = “the doctor of us” → our doctor
In speech you’ll usually just hear it as one unit: Likitanmu.
Yana here is the progressive / continuous form of the verb “to be” with a 3rd person singular subject:
- ya – “he” (subject pronoun)
- na – “is doing / is (in a continuous action)”
- yana – literally “he is (doing)”, used before a verb to make a continuous or ongoing action.
So:
- Likitanmu yana nuna …
= “Our doctor is showing …” or “Our doctor shows (regularly) …”
You’d use:
- ya nuna = “he showed / he has shown / he did show” (simple past or perfective)
- yana nuna = “he is showing / he shows (generally)” (continuous or habitual present)
In many contexts, Hausa yana nuna can be translated with a simple English present:
“Our doctor shows a lot of compassion …”
nuna is a verb meaning “to show, to display, to point out.”
In this sentence:
- nuna tausayi = “to show compassion” / “to display sympathy.”
Hausa often uses a verb like nuna plus a noun to express ideas that English packs into one verb:
- nuna girmamawa – to show respect
- nuna soyayya – to show love / affection
- nuna sha’awa – to show interest
There is also a verb related to compassion, tausayawa (to sympathize, to feel pity), or the phrase jin tausayi (to feel compassion), but:
- yana nuna tausayi focuses on the outward expression of compassion.
- yana jin tausayi focuses more on the internal feeling of compassion.
Both are correct, but nuna tausayi nicely matches the English phrase “show compassion.”
tausayi is a noun meaning roughly “pity, sympathy, compassion.”
Some related forms you might see:
- jin tausayi – “feeling pity/compassion”
- mai tausayi – “a compassionate person” (lit. “one who has compassion”)
So in nuna tausayi, tausayi is the thing that is being shown.
sosai means “very, a lot, greatly, strongly.” It intensifies the action or quality.
In this sentence:
- yana nuna tausayi sosai
≈ “he shows a lot of compassion” / “he is very compassionate (in action).”
Position: in Hausa, adverbs like sosai usually come after the verb phrase or adjective they modify:
- ya gaji sosai – he is very tired / he got very tired
- sun yi aiki sosai – they worked a lot / very hard
- yana son yara sosai – he really likes children
So it’s natural to have sosai after nuna tausayi.
Here ga works like the preposition “to / for / towards” in English.
- … ga yara … = “… to children …”
In many cases, ga introduces the person or thing that receives or is affected by an action:
- ka ba shi littafi – give him a book
- ka ba shi littafi ga shi – (you may also hear ga in other constructions, but that’s different)
Common patterns with ga in this kind of sentence:
- yana magana ga dalibai – he is speaking to the students
- ya yi kyau ga kowa – it looks good to everyone
In yana nuna tausayi sosai ga yara, ga yara marks the people toward whom the compassion is directed: “Our doctor shows a lot of compassion *to children …”*
yara is a plural noun meaning “children.”
Singular forms:
- yaro – boy / child (usually male or generic)
- yarinya – girl
So:
- yaro → yara (children, often mixed or general)
In this sentence yara just means “children” in general, not specifically boys or girls.
masu ciwo literally means “those who have sickness / illness”, and functionally it means “sick / ill (people)”.
Breakdown:
- mai – “one who has / owner of (something)” (singular)
- masu – plural of mai: “those who have …” (or “owners of …”)
- ciwo – sickness, pain, illness, a sore
So:
- mai ciwo – “someone who is sick” / “a sick person”
- masu ciwo – “people who are sick” / “sick people”
In yara masu ciwo:
- yara – children
- masu ciwo – (who are) sick
Together: “children who are sick” / “sick children.”
Grammatically, masu ciwo is acting like a descriptive phrase attached to yara.
yaran ciwo would be ungrammatical or at least very strange; it would sound like “the children of sickness” (as if sickness owned the children).
To describe people by a condition they have, Hausa typically uses:
- mai + noun (singular)
- masu + noun (plural)
for “one(s) who have X / are characterized by X”:
- mai ciwo – sick person (has sickness)
- masu ciwo – sick people
- mai hankali – sensible / intelligent person
- masu hankali – sensible / intelligent people
So yara masu ciwo is the natural structure for “children who are sick.”
Yes, you could say:
- yaran da suke da ciwo – “the children who have sickness / who are sick”
Differences:
Length and style
- yara masu ciwo is shorter and very common in everyday speech.
- yaran da suke da ciwo is longer, more explicitly a relative clause.
Definiteness
- yara masu ciwo can mean “sick children” in general.
- yaran da suke da ciwo usually sounds more like “the children who are sick” (a more specific group already in context), partly because of yaran (the children).
In many contexts they overlap, but yara masu ciwo is the more compact, idiomatic choice here.
Yes, yana agrees with the grammatical person and number of the subject, but not really with natural gender in everyday Hausa.
- 3rd person singular subject:
- yana – he/she is (doing)
- 3rd person plural:
- suna – they are (doing)
So:
- Likitanmu yana nuna … – Our doctor is showing …
- Likitocinmu suna nuna … – Our doctors are showing …
Even if the doctor is a woman, Hausa typically still uses the same form yana for 3rd person singular in this kind of verbal construction in many dialects. You don’t change it to mark feminine in this pattern.
You can translate yana nuna tausayi sosai as “he is very compassionate”, but note the nuance:
- yana nuna tausayi sosai – literally “he is showing a lot of compassion,” emphasizing his actions toward others.
- he is very compassionate – in English, focuses more on his character/quality.
In everyday translation, “Our doctor is very compassionate toward sick children” is natural and accurate, because it captures both idea of showing and having compassion.
If you wanted to stress more “he feels compassion,” you might see:
- Likitanmu yana jin tausayi sosai ga yara masu ciwo. – Our doctor feels a lot of compassion for sick children.
The most natural position is after the verb phrase it modifies:
- Likitanmu yana nuna tausayi sosai ga yara masu ciwo.
Other positions like:
- ✗ Likitanmu yana sosai nuna tausayi ga yara masu ciwo.
- ✗ Likitanmu sosai yana nuna tausayi ga yara masu ciwo.
sound unnatural or wrong.
General rule of thumb: put sosai after:
- a verb phrase: ya yi aiki sosai – he worked a lot
- or an adjective / stative verb: tana daɗi sosai – it’s very nice / delicious
So the placement in the sentence is standard and idiomatic.
The sentence follows S–V–O/Other word order, similar to English:
- Likitanmu – Subject (Our doctor)
- yana nuna tausayi sosai – Verb phrase (is showing a lot of compassion)
- ga yara masu ciwo – Prepositional phrase (to sick children)
So, linearly:
Subject – Auxiliary (yana) – Verb (nuna) – Object (tausayi) – Adverb (sosai) – Prepositional phrase (ga + noun phrase)
This is a very typical structure for a Hausa sentence describing an ongoing or habitual action.