Yara sun samu ruwa mai sanyi.

The children got cold water.

Breakdown of Yara sun samu ruwa mai sanyi.

• ruwa: the water
• yaro: the child
• mai sanyi: cold
• samu: to gain

Questions & Answers about Yara sun samu ruwa mai sanyi.

What exactly does yara mean here, and what is the singular form?

Yara means “children”. It’s the regular plural of yaro.

• yaro = child / boy
• yara = children (boys and/or girls)

In everyday speech yara is used for children in general, not only boys. There are more specific words like yarinya (girl), but yara by itself can cover mixed groups of children.

What is sun doing in this sentence? Is it like the English verb “to be”?

Sun is not a separate verb like English “to be”. It’s a subject pronoun + tense/aspect marker fused together.

• su = they (3rd person plural pronoun)
• -n (or -n attached) = perfective / completed aspect marker

Together: sun = “they (have) [done something]”, marking a completed action.

In Yara sun samu ruwa mai sanyi, sun shows that the action “get water” is finished (roughly “the children got / have got cold water”). It doesn’t translate literally as a separate “have” in English, but that is the idea.

Why is it sun and not suna?

Sun and suna mark different aspects:

• sun = perfective (completed action)

  • Yara sun samu ruwa mai sanyi.
    → The children got / have got cold water.

• suna = imperfective (ongoing or habitual action)

  • Yara suna samun ruwa mai sanyi.
    → The children are getting cold water / usually get cold water.

So sun tells you the “getting” is already done, while suna would mean the action is in progress or repeated.

Can I leave out sun and just say Yara samu ruwa mai sanyi?

In a normal statement, no. Hausa main clauses almost always need a subject pronoun + tense/aspect marker before the verb.

• Yara sun samu ruwa mai sanyi. ✅
  A complete sentence: “The children got cold water.”

If you say:

• Yara samu ruwa mai sanyi.

this will sound either incomplete or like part of another construction, unless it is being used as a kind of command or headline style, for example:

• Yara, samu ruwa mai sanyi.
  → “Children, get some cold water.” (imperative)

You might also see Yara suka samu ruwa mai sanyi, where suka is another perfective form used for narration or focus (e.g. in storytelling or emphasis: “It was the children who got cold water”), but you still need some form like sun or suka.

What exactly does samu mean here, and how is it different from other Hausa verbs like “buy” or “receive”?

Samu basically means “to get / obtain / manage to get / find”.

In this sentence it just means the children obtained or got hold of cold water, without specifying how:

• They might have found it.
• They might have been given it.
• They might have managed to get it somehow.

Some related verbs:

• saya = to buy

  • Yara sun sayi ruwa mai sanyi.
    → The children bought cold water.

• karɓa = to receive / take (what is given)

  • Yara sun karɓi ruwa mai sanyi.
    → The children received cold water.

So samu is the most general “get/obtain” verb.

Why is there no word for “the” or “some” in the sentence?

Hausa does not have separate words exactly like English “the” or “a/some”. Instead, bare nouns can be definite or indefinite depending on context.

• Yara can mean “children” or “the children”.
• ruwa can mean “water” or “(some) water”.

If you need to be very explicit, Hausa uses other devices:

• Definite / specific:

  • yaran = the children
  • ruwan = the water
  • yaran nan = these children
  • ruwan nan = this water (here)

• Some (amount) (especially countable things):

  • ’yan yara = some children (lit. “a few children”)
  • ’dan ruwa or kaɗan in other contexts = a little (bit of) water

But in Yara sun samu ruwa mai sanyi, context usually makes it clear whether you mean “the children” or just “children” in general, and “some (cold) water” is naturally understood for ruwa.

Is ruwa singular or plural? How do I talk about “waters” or quantities of water?

Ruwa is grammatically singular and is usually treated as a mass noun (like “water” in English).

• ruwa = water (in general)

There are plural forms like ruwoyi / ruwaye, but they’re not used for ordinary “drinking water”. They tend to mean kinds of water or appear in special contexts.

To talk about quantities, you typically add numbers, containers, or measure words:

• ruwa kaɗan = a little water
• kwalaben ruwa biyu = two bottles of water
• guga ɗaya na ruwa = one bucket of water
• ruwa iri biyu = two kinds/types of water

In Yara sun samu ruwa mai sanyi, ruwa is just “water”, not counted.

Why does the descriptive part come after the noun (ruwa mai sanyi) instead of before it, like in English “cold water”?

In Hausa, descriptive words normally follow the noun they describe.

• English: cold water
• Hausa: ruwa mai sanyi (literally “water (that is) cold”)

Pattern:

• Noun + (adjective or descriptor)

Examples:

• mota ja = a red car (literally “car red”)
• mutum mai hankali = a sensible / intelligent person (literally “person having sense”)
• ruwa mai tsabta = clean water

So ruwa mai sanyi follows the normal Hausa pattern: “water cold”, not “cold water”.

What does the phrase mai sanyi mean exactly, and why do we need mai?

Sanyi by itself is a noun meaning “cold, coldness, cool temperature”.

To turn it into something like an adjective (“cold” as a quality of another noun), Hausa often uses mai + noun:

• mai (here) ≈ “having / possessing / characterized by”

So:

• mai sanyi = “(something) that has coldness” → “cold”
• ruwa mai sanyi = “water that has coldness” → “cold water”

This mai + noun pattern is very common:

• mutum mai hankali = a sensible person (person having sense)
• mota mai tsada = an expensive car (car having expensiveness)
• gida mai tsawo = a tall house (house having height)

In ruwa mai sanyi, mai sanyi functions like an adjective phrase describing ruwa.

Is sanyi an adjective or a noun? How else is it used?

Sanyi is basically a noun, meaning “cold, coldness, coolness”.

Some common uses:

• Ina jin sanyi.
  → I feel cold. (literally “I am feeling coldness.”)

• Sanyi ya yi ƙarfi.
  → The cold is strong / It is very cold.

When you want “cold” as in “cold water / cold room”, Hausa often treats it as a quality noun and uses patterns like:

• ruwa mai sanyi = cold water
• ɗaki mai sanyi = a cool room

So in ruwa mai sanyi, sanyi is still a noun, and mai is what turns the whole thing into something adjectival in function.

Could I also say Yara sun samu ruwan sanyi instead of ruwa mai sanyi? Is there any difference?

Yes, you will also hear Yara sun samu ruwan sanyi, and it is natural.

The structure is slightly different:

• ruwa mai sanyi
  → “water that has coldness” (descriptive phrase with mai)

• ruwan sanyi
  → literally “water of cold” (a genitive / “of”-relationship) which functions as a fixed phrase meaning “cold water”

Formally:

• ruwa
  • -n (linker/definite/genitive) = ruwan
• ruwan sanyi = “the water of cold(ness)” → “cold water”

In everyday speech, both are used:

• Na sha ruwa mai sanyi.
• Na sha ruwan sanyi.

Both mean “I drank cold water.” Any difference in nuance is very small and usually not important for learners; in many contexts they are interchangeable.

How would I say “The children did not get cold water” using this sentence as a model?

To negate a perfective sentence like Yara sun samu ruwa mai sanyi, Hausa uses ba … ba and a separate subject pronoun:

• Yara ba su samu ruwa mai sanyi ba.
  → The children did not get cold water.

Structure:

• Yara = the children
• ba su … ba = they did not (3rd person plural, perfective negative)
• samu = get
• ruwa mai sanyi = cold water

You can also drop Yara if it’s clear from context:

• Ba su samu ruwa mai sanyi ba.
  → They did not get cold water.