Matashi yana aiki a asibiti.

A young man is working at the hospital.

Breakdown of Matashi yana aiki a asibiti.

• ne: to be
• a: at
• aiki: to work
• asibiti: the hospital
• matashi: the young man

Questions & Answers about Matashi yana aiki a asibiti.

What are the individual words and their functions in Matashi yana aiki a asibiti?

Word-by-word:

• Matashi – a noun meaning a young man / a youth (usually male). It is the subject.
• yana – literally he is (doing); this is the 3rd person singular masculine + progressive aspect marker.
• aiki – literally work (a noun). Together yana aiki ≈ is working.
• a – a preposition meaning in/at (here: at).
• asibiti – a noun meaning hospital.

So structurally it is:
[Subject] [he-is-doing] [work] [at] [hospital].

What does Matashi mean exactly, and is it always male?

• Matashi means a young person, but in practice it most often means a young man / male youth.
• The feminine form is matashiya, meaning young woman / female youth.
• The plural is matasa – young people / youths (mixed or unspecified gender).

Examples:

• Matashi ya zo. – A young man came.
• Matashiya ta zo. – A young woman came.
• Matasa sun zo. – Young people came.

Does Matashi mean "a young man" or "the young man"? There is no a/the in the sentence.

Hausa has no separate words for “a” or “the” like English. Matashi by itself can be:

• a young man (indefinite)
• the young man (definite)

Which one it is depends on context, not on an article.

If you really want to make it clearly definite (like “that specific young man”), you can add a demonstrative or a “linker”:

• Matashin nan yana aiki a asibiti. – This young man works at the hospital.
• Matashin ɗin yana aiki a asibiti. – That/the said young man works at the hospital.

What exactly is yana? Is it one word or two words?

Yana is written as one word, but grammatically it comes from:

• ya – he (3rd person singular masculine subject pronoun)
• na – progressive aspect marker (roughly “is doing / is in the process of”)

In actual usage they fuse to form:

• yana – he is (doing)
• tana – she is (doing)
• ina – I am (doing)
• suna – they are (doing)

So in Matashi yana aiki, yana is telling you who (he) and what tense/aspect (progressive: is doing).

Why is it yana aiki and not just a single verb like "works"?

In Hausa, “to work” is usually expressed as yi aiki, literally “do work”:

• yi – to do
• aiki – work

In the progressive (“is working”), Hausa commonly uses:

[subject+progressive] + [verbal noun]

So:

• Matashi yana aiki. – The young man is working / works.

Here aiki is a verbal noun (work), and yana carries the idea of “he is doing”. Together they function like the English verb “works / is working.”

Is yana here more like "is working now" or "he works (generally)"?

Yana mainly marks the imperfective/progressive aspect. In practice:

• It can mean right now / currently:
  
  • Matashi yana aiki a asibiti yanzu. – The young man is working at the hospital now.
• It can also describe a general, ongoing situation or job:
  
  • Matashi yana aiki a asibiti. – The young man works at a hospital / has a job at a hospital.

Context (adverbs like yanzu “now”, or how the sentence is used) usually tells you whether it’s “right now” or “as his regular job.”

How would the sentence change for a young woman instead of a young man?

You change both the noun and the agreement in yana:

• Matashiya tana aiki a asibiti.
  
  • Matashiya – young woman
  • tana – she is (doing)

So:

• Matashi yana aiki a asibiti. – A young man is working at the hospital.
• Matashiya tana aiki a asibiti. – A young woman is working at the hospital.

What does the preposition a mean here, and can it also mean "in"?

Yes. a is a very common preposition that usually means:

• at (a place)
• in (a place)

In a asibiti, it means roughly “at (the) hospital” or “in (the) hospital”. English sometimes prefers “in” or “at”, but Hausa just uses a.

More examples:

• Yana zaune a gida. – He is sitting at home / in the house.
• Mun hadu a kasuwa. – We met at the market.

How would I say "from the hospital" instead of "at the hospital"?

For “from (a place)”, Hausa usually uses daga instead of a:

• Matashi yana aiki daga asibiti. – The young man is working from the hospital (e.g., doing remote paperwork from there).

So:

• a asibiti – at/in the hospital
• daga asibiti – from the hospital

What is asibiti? Is it a Hausa word or a borrowing?

Asibiti means hospital. It is a borrowed word, historically through contact with other languages (ultimately related to English hospital via intermediary languages such as Arabic and colonial contact).

Grammatically it behaves like a normal Hausa noun:

• Singular: asibiti – hospital
• Plural: asibitoci – hospitals

Example:

• Akwai asibitoci da yawa a birni. – There are many hospitals in the city.

What is the basic word order in Matashi yana aiki a asibiti, and is it the normal Hausa order?

The sentence follows normal Hausa word order:

1. Subject – Matashi
2. Subject+aspect marker – yana
3. Verbal noun (main action) – aiki
4. Prepositional phrase (location) – a asibiti

So the pattern is:

Subject – (Tense/Aspect) – Verb/Verbal Noun – Place

This corresponds quite well to English S–V–(Place):

The young man – is working – at the hospital.

How would I make this sentence negative: "The young man is not working at the hospital"?

For the negative progressive, you typically use ba … ba around the subject+aspect part:

• Matashi ba ya aiki a asibiti. – The young man is not working at the hospital.

Notes:

• ba … ba is the ordinary negation frame.
• In speech you may also hear baya fused:
  
  • Matashi baya aiki a asibiti. – same meaning, more colloquial.

The rest of the sentence (aiki a asibiti) stays the same.

How could I say "Which young man works at the hospital?" using this structure?

You can use the question word wanne (which, masculine) before matashi:

• Wanne matashi ne yake aiki a asibiti? – Which young man works at the hospital?

Here you see a slightly more complex structure:

• wanne matashi – which young man
• ne – focus particle for masculine nouns
• yake aiki – (is the one who) works
• a asibiti – at the hospital

Your original simple sentence Matashi yana aiki a asibiti is the non-question, unfocused version.