Questions & Answers about Su suna gida yanzu.
Su is the independent pronoun “they”.
It refers to a group of people (or things) that you are talking about.
It does not show gender: su can mean “they (men)”, “they (women)”, or “they (things)”, depending on context.
In everyday speech you can say either:
- Suna gida yanzu. – They are at home now.
- Su suna gida yanzu. – They are at home now. (with extra emphasis on they)
When you add the independent pronoun su before suna, you are typically emphasizing or contrasting the subject, like:
Su suna gida yanzu, amma mu muna waje. – They are at home now, but we are outside.
So it’s not a mistake; it’s emphasis, not simple repetition.
Historically it comes from two parts (su + na), but in modern teaching materials you very often see it written as one word: suna.
Learners are usually taught ina, kana, yana, tana, muna, kuna, suna as single units meaning roughly “am/are/is (doing/being)”.
You may also see su na written separately, especially in more linguistic or older texts, but suna as one word is very common and acceptable.
Suna is a present/imperfective form attached to su (“they”).
With a verb, it usually means “they are doing X / they do X”, e.g. Suna cin abinci – “They are eating / They eat.”
With a place word like gida, it works like a present “copula”: Suna gida is best understood as “They are at home”.
So in this sentence, suna is the part that gives you the idea of “are (now, at present)”.
Both ideas are possible, depending on context.
By default, Su suna gida yanzu simply says “They are at home now” (a present situation).
If the wider context talks about not going out, you could understand it as “They are staying at home now”, but that extra nuance comes from context, not from a special form in the sentence itself.
Hausa often drops an explicit preposition a (“at, in”) with certain common location words such as gida (“home”), ciki (“inside”), waje (“outside”), etc.
So:
- Suna gida. and Suna a gida. can both be heard and both can mean “They are at home.”
With gida, omitting a is very common and very natural. As a learner, you can accept both, and you’ll hear Suna gida all the time.
Gida most often corresponds to “home” in this kind of sentence: Suna gida = “They are at home.”
It can also mean a physical “house”, depending on context.
The regular plural is gidaje – gidaje = “houses/homes”.
Example: Su suna gidaje uku. – They have three houses. (here you’d usually give more context, but grammatically that’s how the plural works).
Yanzu means “now”.
It’s an adverb of time and is quite flexible in position. Common options include:
- Su suna gida yanzu. – They are at home now.
- Yanzu suna gida. – Now they are at home.
- Yanzu su suna gida. – Now they are at home. (with emphatic su)
All of these are understandable; the differences are only in slight emphasis or flow.
Yes.
Su suna gida. by itself is a completely correct sentence: “They are at home.”
Adding yanzu just specifies that this is true now.
Yes, and that is actually the most usual everyday form.
Suna gida yanzu. – They are at home now.
Adding su in Su suna gida yanzu highlights or contrasts the subject (“they, not someone else”), but it’s not required for a normal, neutral statement.
A simple, common negative is:
- Ba su gida yanzu ba. – They are not at home now.
Notice the pattern:
- Affirmative: Suna gida yanzu.
- Negative: Ba su gida yanzu ba.
In the negative, suna changes to su, and ba … ba wraps the clause.
(The exact negative patterns in Hausa can vary by region, but this is a good basic model.)
The simplest way in speech is just to use question intonation on the affirmative form:
- Suna gida yanzu? – Are they at home now?
You can also hear:
- Suna gida yanzu ne? – Are they at home now? (with ne adding a kind of “is that the case?” feeling)
For learners, Suna gida yanzu? with rising intonation is an easy and natural pattern.
Yes. Time expressions like yanzu (“now”) are flexible. For example:
- Su suna gida yanzu. – They are at home now.
- Yanzu suna gida. – Now they are at home.
- Yanzu su suna gida. – Now they are at home. (emphasizing “they”)
All are grammatical; the choice mainly affects what you emphasize first (time vs. subject).
Suna is an imperfective/present form (often “are doing / are (somewhere)”):
- Suna gida. – They are at home.
- Suna cin abinci. – They are eating.
Sun is a perfective/completed-action form (often “they have done / they did”):
- Sun tafi. – They have gone / They went.
- Sun ci abinci. – They have eaten / They ate.
So you would not say Sun gida; for location in the present you use suna.
No.
Su is strictly third person plural – “they”.
For “you (plural)”, Hausa uses ku (and verbs like kuna):
Kuna gida yanzu. – You (plural) are at home now.
There isn’t a special “polite they = you” system as in some European languages.
Yes.
Su can refer to people, animals, or inanimate things in the plural.
Example with things: Su littattafan suna gida yanzu. – Those books are at home now.
Context usually makes it clear whether “they” are people or objects.
Very roughly in English-like spelling:
- Su – “soo”
- suna – “SOO-nah” (both vowels short; stress usually on the first syllable)
- gida – “GEE-dah” (short i, like in “bit”)
- yanzu – “YAN-zoo” (short a, then “zoo”)
Hausa is a tonal language, but tones are not written in ordinary spelling.
At a beginner level, focusing on the consonants and short, clear vowels as above will make you understandable.