Uwa tana sa kabeji a cikin miya.

Yes, Uwa already names the subject, but Hausa normally still uses a subject marker before the verb.

So the pattern is:

Uwa + tana + verb

• Uwa = the noun, mother
• tana = a marker that agrees with the subject and shows the verbal aspect

This is very normal in Hausa. English would not repeat the subject this way, but Hausa often does. You can think of it loosely as:

Mother, she is putting cabbage in the soup.

That is not the best English translation, but it helps show the structure.

tana tells you two important things:

1. the subject is third person singular feminine = she
2. the action is in an imperfective / ongoing kind of form

So tana sa here is understood as something like she is putting / she is adding.

This is why the sentence works without a separate Hausa word matching English is.

sa is a very common Hausa verb with a broad range of meanings depending on context. It can mean things like:

• put
• place
• add
• sometimes even wear in other contexts

In Uwa tana sa kabeji a cikin miya, the food context makes put/add the natural meaning.

So here sa kabeji means putting/adding cabbage.

a cikin is a common expression meaning in, inside, or into.

Breakdown:

• a = a preposition often used for location/direction
• ciki = inside/interior
• cikin before a noun means something like inside of

So:

a cikin miya = in the soup / inside the soup

It is a very natural way to express being inside something.

The structure is:

Uwa | tana | sa | kabeji | a cikin miya

You can label it like this:

• Uwa = subject
• tana = subject/aspect marker
• sa = verb
• kabeji = direct object
• a cikin miya = prepositional phrase showing where the cabbage is being put

So a useful pattern is:

Subject + subject/aspect marker + verb + object + prepositional phrase

Hausa usually does not use articles the same way English does.

That means a noun like kabeji can mean:

• cabbage
• the cabbage
• some cabbage

And miya can mean:

• soup
• the soup

The exact meaning depends on context.

So it is normal that you do not see separate words matching English a or the here.

Not always.

Miya is often translated as soup, but depending on context it can also be closer to:

• sauce
• stew
• a soup-like dish eaten with another food

So soup is a useful translation, but the Hausa word can be a little broader than the English one.

In a sentence like this, tana sa most naturally suggests an ongoing/current action:

• She is putting / adding cabbage...

If you wanted to make a clearly habitual meaning such as Mother usually puts cabbage in soup, Hausa often uses a different construction, for example with takan:

• Uwa takan sa kabeji a cikin miya.

So for learners, it is safest to read tana sa here as is putting / is adding.

The marker changes to match the subject.

Examples:

• Uba yana sa kabeji a cikin miya.
  Father is putting cabbage in the soup.

• Tana sa kabeji a cikin miya.
  She is putting cabbage in the soup.

So yes, you can leave out Uwa if the person is already known from context, because tana already tells you she.

No, kabeji is a borrowed word, like many food and everyday vocabulary items in Hausa.

That is common and completely normal. For a learner, the main thing to notice is that even borrowed nouns fit smoothly into normal Hausa sentence structure:

• tana sa kabeji
• a cikin miya

So although kabeji is a loanword, the grammar around it is fully Hausa.