Breakdown of Wakilin yana tsare fayil.
ya
he/it
wakili
the representative; agent
fayil
the file
tsare
to guard; protect
Questions & Answers about Wakilin yana tsare fayil.
Why is it wakilin instead of wakili?
Wakili is the basic noun, meaning representative or agent. The ending -n in wakilin marks it as a specific masculine singular noun, so it is roughly the representative / the agent. This -n ending is very common in Hausa, so it is worth getting used to early.
What does yana do in this sentence?
Yana shows that the subject is 3rd person masculine singular and that the action is ongoing. In natural English, it often corresponds to he is ...-ing. So here it tells you that the representative is doing the action now or in an ongoing way.
Where is the word for is?
Hausa does not build this kind of sentence with a separate verb exactly like English is plus an -ing form. Instead, yana already does that job. So yana tsare means something like is guarding, is protecting, or is keeping depending on context.
Why doesn't tsare change the way English verbs do?
In Hausa, the subject information is mainly shown by markers like yana, tana, and suna. The verb itself usually stays the same. So instead of changing the verb the way English does with / , Hausa changes the marker before the verb.