Ni bana son farashi mai tsada a kasuwa.

I don’t like high prices at the market.

Breakdown of Ni bana son farashi mai tsada a kasuwa.

• ni: I
• ba … ba: not
• kasuwa: the market
• a: at

Questions & Answers about Ni bana son farashi mai tsada a kasuwa.

What does each word in Ni bana son farashi mai tsada a kasuwa literally mean?

Word by word:

• Ni – I (independent/emphatic pronoun)
• bana – I do not (habitually / right now). This is ba + na, the negative form of ina (I am / I do in the present).
• son – liking / wanting / love (verbal noun of the verb so “to want/like/love”)
• farashi – price, rate
• mai tsada – expensive, literally having expensiveness
  
  • mai – “having / that has …”
  • tsada – expensiveness, high cost
• a – in / at
• kasuwa – market

So the structure is roughly: I – don’t-like – price – having-expensiveness – in market.

Why do we have Ni and also bana, if both point to “I”?

• bana already encodes I (it’s ba + na, where na is “I” in this negative present form), so grammatically Ni is not required.

• Ni is an independent/emphatic pronoun. Adding it stresses the subject:

  • Bana son farashi mai tsada a kasuwa. – I don’t like expensive prices in the market. (neutral)
  • – (contrast/emphasis – maybe others do, but I don’t)