Breakdown of Ni na yi kuskure a cikin amsa, amma malami ya nuna min yadda zan gyara shi.
Questions & Answers about Ni na yi kuskure a cikin amsa, amma malami ya nuna min yadda zan gyara shi.
In Hausa, ni and na are not the same thing:
- ni = the independent pronoun I / me
- na (here) = the subject marker for I in the completed tense (perfective)
So:
- Na yi kuskure = I made a mistake (neutral statement)
- Ni na yi kuskure = I was the one who made a mistake (emphasis on I, not someone else)
Using ni here is a focus/emphasis construction. It’s used when you want to contrast or highlight the subject, a bit like stressing it in English:
- It was *me who made the mistake (not them).*
So the sentence is not redundant; it is deliberately emphasizing the “I”.
Na yi is the perfective (completed) aspect of the verb yi (to do, to make) for the 1st person singular.
Rough guide:
- na yi = I did / I have done (completed action)
- ina yi = I am doing / I do (generally) (progressive / habitual)
- zan yi = I will do (future / planned or unrealised)
In Ni na yi kuskure, na yi shows that the mistake is a finished event — you already made it.
Kuskure is a noun meaning mistake, error, wrongness. Hausa often uses yi (to do/make) + a noun to express ideas that are a single verb in English. So:
- yi kuskure = make a mistake
- literally: do a mistake
Other examples with yi:
- yi magana – speak, talk (literally do speech)
- yi tambaya – ask a question (literally do a question)
You might also see laifi (fault, offense, guilt), which can be more about blame or wrongdoing, while kuskure is a more neutral error/mistake (e.g. in an exercise, on an exam, in a calculation).
Breakdown:
- a = a general preposition meaning at / in / on (location)
- ciki = inside
- cikin = in(side) of … (ciki + -n link)
So a cikin amsa is literally:
- at in-side of the answer → in the answer
In idiomatic English, we would just say in the answer, but Hausa often uses a cikin + noun to make the idea of “inside” clear, even for abstract things like answers, texts, speeches, etc.
Using just a amsa here would sound strange; Hausa speakers normally say:
- a cikin amsa – in the answer
- or sometimes just cikin amsa
In malami ya nuna min…:
- malami = the teacher
- ya = 3rd person singular subject marker in the perfective (roughly he/she/it did)
- nuna = to show
- min = to me / for me
Hausa doesn’t usually need a separate word for he when the subject is a noun like malami. The ya tells you:
- who (3rd person singular), and
- that the action is completed
So malami ya nuna min is like saying:
- the teacher (he) showed me
The ya is grammatical; you can’t leave it out. You wouldn’t say ✗ malami nuna min.
Min here means to me / for me. It is a clitic form built from:
- ma = for / to
- ni = me
→ ma + ni → min / mini / mani (different surface forms)
In this sentence, min is an indirect object pronoun, like English me in showed me. But in Hausa, these pronouns normally:
- come right after the verb (or after tense/aspect markers), not before it.
So:
- ya nuna min = he showed to-me → he showed me
- ya gaya min = he told me
- za su ba ki = they will give you (f.sg.)
You can sometimes hear mini or mani, especially for emphasis, but min here is the normal short form.
All three relate to to/for me (from ma + ni), but they differ in form and style:
- min – short, clitic form; very common after verbs:
- ya nuna min – he showed me
- mini – fuller form; can sound a bit clearer or more careful:
- ya nuna mini – he showed me (still quite normal)
- mani – often more emphatic or stressed in speech:
- ka bani mani! – give it to me (me in particular)!
In your sentence, ya nuna min is the most typical everyday choice.
Yadda is a linker meaning how, the way that, in the manner that. It introduces a clause:
- yadda zan gyara shi = how I will fix it / the way I will fix it
Contrast:
ta yaya? – how? (direct question)
- Ta yaya zan gyara shi? – How will I fix it?
yadda zan gyara shi – how I will fix it (part of a larger sentence, not a direct question)
- ya nuna min yadda zan gyara shi – he showed me how I would fix it / how to fix it
So:
- Use ta yaya to ask “how?”
- Use yadda to link a clause that means “how …” or “the way (that) …”
In ya nuna min yadda zan gyara shi:
- ya nuna min – he showed me (past/completed)
- zan gyara shi – I will fix it (future / unrealised at that past time)
The teacher showed you in the past how to do something you would still do after that time. Hausa naturally uses zan here because:
- the fixing is future relative to the moment of showing
English often says he showed me how to fix it (using an infinitive), but Hausa uses a normal finite clause with future:
- he showed me how I will fix it / how I am to fix it → idiomatic English: how to fix it.
You might also hear other patterns in other contexts, like:
- ya nuna min yadda ake gyara shi – he showed me how one (generally) fixes it
Gyara is a very flexible verb meaning roughly to fix, correct, repair, adjust, tidy (up). It can apply to:
- gyara kuskure – correct a mistake
- gyara amsa – fix/improve an answer
- gyara mota – repair a car
- gyara gida – renovate a house
- gyara kaya – adjust/straighten clothes, luggage, etc.
In your sentence, yadda zan gyara shi means how I will correct/fix it, where gyara is specifically about correcting the mistake.
Shi is the 3rd person masculine singular object pronoun: him / it (masc.).
In the sentence:
- kuskure (mistake) is grammatically masculine in Hausa.
- amsa (answer) is grammatically feminine.
So:
- gyara shi – correct/fix it (masc.) → refers to kuskure (the mistake)
- gyara ta – correct/fix it (fem.) → would refer to amsa (the answer)
Hausa tends to keep the object pronoun even when the noun was just mentioned, so saying only yadda zan gyara would sound incomplete or too vague in careful speech.
Thus yadda zan gyara shi explicitly means how I will correct it (the mistake).