Learn Hardcore Hausa: A gida kullum muna da abu ƙarami ko abu babba da muke amfani da shi. - At home we always have some small thing or big thing that we use.

A gida kullum muna da abu ƙarami ko abu babba da muke amfani da shi.

At home we always have some small thing or big thing that we use.

Breakdown of A gida kullum muna da abu ƙarami ko abu babba da muke amfani da shi.

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Questions & Answers about A gida kullum muna da abu ƙarami ko abu babba da muke amfani da shi.

What is the literal, word‑for‑word breakdown of A gida kullum muna da abu ƙarami ko abu babba da muke amfani da shi?

Here is a simple gloss:

A – at / in (preposition)
gida – house, home
→ a gida = at home / in the house
kullum – every day, always
muna – we are (doing…), continuous/habitual form of mu (we)
da – with / have here, so muna da ≈ we have
abu – thing, something
ƙarami – small
→ abu ƙarami = a small thing
ko – or
abu – thing
babba – big
→ abu babba = a big thing
da – that / which (relative marker here, not the same as “with”)
muke – we (who) are (doing…), relative/“-ke” form of muna
amfani – use, using (a verbal noun)
da – with (preposition here)
shi – it / him (masculine singular pronoun, referring back to abu)

So a very literal reading is something like:
“At home always we-have thing small or thing big that we-are using with it.”

Why is it “A gida” and not something like “in the house” with an article?

Hausa does not have definite and indefinite articles like English “the” and “a/an.”

A means “in / at / on” depending on context.
gida means “house / home.”

So a gida can be understood as:

in the house
at home

The idea of “the” is simply understood from context; you do not add a separate word for it. If you wanted to be more specific (e.g. “in our house”), you could say a gidanmu (in our house), but the basic a gida already works for “at home.”

Can the order of “a gida” and “kullum” change? For example, is “Kullum a gida muna da…” also correct?

Yes, the order can change, and both are natural:

A gida kullum muna da… – At home, every day we have…
Kullum a gida muna da… – Every day, at home we have…

The meaning is practically the same. The difference is just in emphasis:

Starting with a gida slightly foregrounds the location (at home).
Starting with kullum slightly foregrounds frequency/time (every day).

Hausa word order is fairly flexible with adverbs like kullum, especially at the beginning of a sentence.

How does “muna da” express “we have” in Hausa?

Hausa often uses a structure that literally means “we are with X” to express possession:

mu – we
continuous form: muna – we are (doing/being)
da – with

So muna da abu literally is we are with a thing, which functions as “we have a thing.”

Other persons:

Ina da littafi – I have a book.
Yana da mota – He has a car.
Suna da ‘ya’ya – They have children.

In your sentence, muna da is best understood as “we have.”

What exactly does “abu” mean here? Is it like “something” or “thing”?

Abu is a very general noun meaning “thing” or “something.”

In this sentence:

abu ƙarami – a small thing / something small
abu babba – a big thing / something big

So abu on its own is quite vague, like English “thing.” If you want to emphasize “some (unspecified) thing,” you can also say wani abu (some thing / something), but here abu ƙarami ko abu babba already gives the idea of “some small or big thing.”

Why is it “abu ƙarami” and not “ƙaramin abu”? What’s the difference between these two?

Both patterns exist in Hausa, but they’re slightly different:

abu ƙarami
- Literally thing small.
- Noun + basic adjective form after it.
- Often feels a bit more like a description: a thing that is small.
ƙaramin abu
- Literally small‑LINK thing.
- ƙarami changes to ƙaramin (the “linking”/attributive form).
- This is the classic “adjective before noun” structure and is very common for tightly bound noun phrases: a small thing.

In everyday speech, ƙaramin abu is probably more common if you mean simply “a small thing” as a unit, but abu ƙarami is also grammatical and understandable. The same applies to:

abu babba vs babban abu (a big thing).

What does “ko” do in “abu ƙarami ko abu babba”?

Ko is the normal conjunction for “or.”

abu ƙarami ko abu babba
→ a small thing or a big thing

You’ll see ko used in questions and statements:

Kana so shayi ko kofi? – Do you want tea or coffee?
Zan je yau ko gobe. – I will go today or tomorrow.

So here it simply connects the two possibilities (small thing / big thing).

In “da muke amfani da shi”, what is this “da” right after “abu babba”? Is it the same “da” as in “muna da”?

No, that first da is different. In “da muke amfani da shi” there are two separate da’s:

da (right after abu babba)
- This is a relative marker, like “that / which” in English.
- It introduces a relative clause describing abu (the thing).
- So abu … da muke… = the thing that we…
da (in amfani da shi)
- This is the preposition “with / using”.
- amfani da shi = use of it / using it.

So:

abu ƙarami ko abu babba da muke amfani da shi
= a small thing or a big thing *that we use it (i.e. that we use).*

The da in muna da (we have) is yet another use: there it means “with” in a possession sense (we are with X → we have X). So you’re seeing three functions of da in one sentence.

Why is it “muke amfani” and not “muna amfani” after “da”?

After the relative marker da (meaning that/which), Hausa normally uses the “-ke” forms (also used for focus). So:

Main clause: muna amfani – we are using / we use
Relative clause: da muke amfani – that we are using / that we use

Pattern with another subject:

Mutumin da yake magana – the man who is speaking
Littafin da suke karantawa – the book that they are reading

So da muke amfani is the standard relative continuous form:
da (that) + mu (we) + -ke + verb.

What does “amfani da shi” mean exactly, and why do we need “shi”?

Amfani is a verbal noun meaning “use, using.”
Da here is the preposition “with / by means of.”
Shi is a pronoun meaning “it / him” (masculine singular).

So:

amfani da shi = use with it → “using it” / “the use of it.”

In Hausa, when a relative clause refers back to something (here abu, thing), it is very common (and often required) to repeat that reference with a pronoun inside the clause. That is why you get:

abu … da muke amfani da shi
→ a thing that we use (it).

The shi refers back to abu. Since abu is grammatically masculine in Hausa, the pronoun is shi, not ita.

Is it possible to drop the final “shi” and just say “da muke amfani da”?

Normally, no—you would not end the clause with da alone. You need something after the preposition da, and here that “something” is the pronoun shi referring back to abu.

✔ da muke amfani da shi – correct
✖ da muke amfani da – incomplete / ungrammatical

You could rewrite the sentence to avoid the pronoun, but then you’d change the structure, e.g.:

abu ƙarami ko abu babba da muke amfani da shi – a small or big thing that we use
abu ƙarami ko abu babba da muke amfani da su – small or big things that we use (them), if you made abu plural, for example.

But as the sentence stands, the shi is needed.

What overall tense or aspect does this sentence express? Is it more like “we always have” (habit) or “we are having” (right now)?

The combination of:

kullum – always / every day
muna da – continuous / present form (we are with / we have)

gives a habitual / regular meaning in context:

A gida kullum muna da…
≈ At home, we always/every day have…

In Hausa, the continuous form (muna) plus an adverb like kullum is often used for regular, repeated actions or states, not just something happening “right now.” So it’s more natural to understand it as habitual (“we always/usually have”) rather than a one‑time “we are having (right now).”