Learn Hardcore Hausa: A daren Lahadi, na yi waya da ’yar uwata minti talatin daga ƙarfe bakwai zuwa takwas. - On Sunday night I talked on the phone with my sister for thirty minutes from seven o'clock to eight.

A – in / on / at (preposition for time or place)
daren – the night / evening (from dare, “night”)
Lahadi – Sunday
- A daren Lahadi – On Sunday night / Sunday evening
na yi – I did / I made (past/perfective of yi, “to do/make”)
waya – literally wire, but in modern Hausa this phrase yi waya means to make a phone call / talk on the phone
- na yi waya – I made a phone call / I talked on the phone
da – with (here: with someone)
’yar uwa – literally daughter of kin, idiomatically sister
-ta (in uwata) – possessive suffix my
- ’yar uwata – my sister
minti talatin – thirty minutes (minti “minute”, talatin “thirty”)
daga – from
ƙarfe bakwai – 7 o’clock (ƙarfe “o’clock / clock time”, bakwai “seven”)
zuwa – to / until
takwas – eight (understood as 8 o’clock from context)

So a literal reading is:
On the night of Sunday, I did phone with my sister thirty minutes from 7 o’clock to 8.

Why is it A daren Lahadi and not something like A dare na Lahadi? What does A daren Lahadi literally mean?

A daren Lahadi is a very natural, fixed way to say on Sunday night.

daren = the night (definite form of dare, “night”).
Lahadi = Sunday.
Hausa often puts the general time word first and the specific day after it, like a kind of “possessor”:
- dare Lahadi ≈ Sunday’s night / the night of Sunday
- With the definite form and preposition: A daren Lahadi = On the night of Sunday

You could say da dare na Lahadi in some contexts, but A daren Lahadi is shorter and very idiomatic.

Parallel examples:

A safiyar Litinin – on Monday morning
Da yammacin Asabar – on Saturday afternoon / evening

What exactly does na yi waya mean? Is waya a verb here?

waya is a noun, not a verb. The verb is yi (to do / make).

yi waya is an idiomatic verb phrase meaning to make a phone call / to talk on the phone.
- literally: to do phone or to do wire

na yi waya:

na – 1st person singular subject + past/perfective marker = I (in past/completed aspect)
yi – do
waya – phone (call)

So na yi waya = I made a phone call / I talked on the phone.

Other similar patterns:

na yi magana – I spoke / I talked (literally “I did speech”)
na yi aiki – I worked / I did work

In da ’yar uwata, what is the function of da? Does it mean “and” or “with”?

In this sentence da means “with”, not “and”.

da ’yar uwata = with my sister

da can mean:

with (comitative):
- na je kasuwa da abokina – I went to the market with my friend.
and (linking nouns):
- shayi da burodi – tea and bread.

How do we know it’s with here? Because yi waya da X is a common pattern meaning to talk on the phone with X. If it were just “and my sister”, it wouldn’t fit the normal verb pattern.

So:

na yi waya da ’yar uwata = I talked on the phone with my sister.

What does ’yar uwa literally mean, and why does it mean “sister”?

Literally, ’yar uwa is:

’yar – daughter (of) (feminine form of ɗa, “son”)
uwa – mother / close female kin

Historically and culturally:

ɗan uwa – son of the same kin → brother
’yar uwa – daughter of the same kin → sister

So ’yar uwa is the standard, idiomatic way to say sister (in general). In the sentence:

’yar uwata – my sister

You don’t usually say kannena mata, etc., for normal everyday “sister”; ’yar uwa is the default.

Why is it uwata and not uwa ta? How does the -ta suffix work here?

-ta in uwata is a possessive suffix meaning “my” (for many feminine nouns and some others).

uwa – mother / (here part of “sister” compound)
-ta – my
uwata – my mother / my (kin’s) mother

In the compound ’yar uwa, the uwa part takes the suffix:

’yar uwata – literally daughter of my kin/mother → idiomatically my sister.

In everyday Hausa, for many nouns you prefer the suffix instead of a separate pronoun ta after the noun.
Compare:

gida (house) → gidana – my house
mota (car) → motata – my car
kawa (female friend) → kawata – my (female) friend

So uwata is the normal, compact possessive form; uwa ta would sound odd here in standard Hausa.

How do I say “for thirty minutes”? Is minti talatin enough, or do I need another word like “for”?

In Hausa, just saying the duration noun phrase is usually enough; you don’t need a separate word for “for” in this sense.

minti talatin – thirty minutes

Placed after the main clause, it gives the idea of duration:

na yi waya da ’yar uwata minti talatin
→ I talked on the phone with my sister for thirty minutes.

You could make it even clearer with na tsawon (“for the length of”):

na yi waya da ’yar uwata na tsawon minti talatin
→ I talked on the phone with my sister for thirty minutes.

But in everyday speech minti talatin on its own after the verb is perfectly natural and usually understood as the duration.

What does ƙarfe mean in daga ƙarfe bakwai? Do I always need it for telling the time?

ƙarfe literally means something like “metal/iron object”, but in time expressions it functions like “o’clock” or “clock time”.

ƙarfe bakwai – seven o’clock (7:00)
ƙarfe takwas – eight o’clock (8:00)

You almost always use ƙarfe when giving a clock time in Hausa:

ƙarfe goma – 10 o’clock
ƙarfe huɗu da rabi – 4:30
ƙarfe shida da minti goma – 6:10

In a range like daga ƙarfe bakwai zuwa takwas, ƙarfe is said once and understood before takwas. You could say daga ƙarfe bakwai zuwa ƙarfe takwas, but that sounds heavier; dropping the second ƙarfe is very typical.

Why is it daga ƙarfe bakwai zuwa takwas and not something like daga bakwai zuwa takwas na dare? How does daga … zuwa … work?

daga … zuwa … is a standard pattern meaning from … to … (for places, times, amounts, etc.).

In this sentence:

daga ƙarfe bakwai – from seven o’clock
zuwa takwas – to eight (o’clock)

You can use daga … zuwa … for:

daga Kano zuwa Abuja – from Kano to Abuja
daga yau zuwa gobe – from today to tomorrow
daga naira goma zuwa naira ashirin – from 10 naira to 20 naira

Your alternative daga bakwai zuwa takwas na dare would be understandable in context, but:

Without ƙarfe, bakwai and takwas could be taken as just numbers “seven” and “eight” rather than clock times.
daga ƙarfe bakwai zuwa takwas explicitly anchors it as clock time, which is clearer.

The English says “from seven to eight”, but the call lasted “thirty minutes”. Isn’t that inconsistent? How is this understood in Hausa?

This is a subtle point of interpretation:

daga ƙarfe bakwai zuwa takwas literally means from 7:00 to 8:00 as a time range.
minti talatin – thirty minutes.

Strictly mathematically, 7:00–8:00 is 60 minutes, not 30. However, ordinary language in both Hausa and English sometimes uses these time phrases less precisely to indicate “sometime between 7 and 8, for 30 minutes”, not the entire hour.

Three interpretations a listener might have:

The call was somewhere between 7 and 8 and lasted 30 minutes (most natural everyday reading).
The speaker is being a bit loose with the time range; they mean “around 7 to 8” and “about 30 minutes”.
The sentence accidentally mixes two slightly inconsistent details.

If you want to be very precise in Hausa you might say:

Na yi waya da ’yar uwata minti talatin daga ƙarfe bakwai da rabi zuwa bakwai da rabi.
→ I talked with my sister for 30 minutes from 7:30 to 8:00.

But ordinary conversation tolerates some vagueness, just as in English.

What tense/aspect is na yi? How is it different from ina yin waya?

na yi is the perfective (completed) aspect for “I”.

na yi – I did / I have done (completed action)
In this sentence: na yi waya – I (already) made a phone call / I talked on the phone.

ina yin waya uses the imperfective (ongoing / habitual) aspect:

ina – I (in the continuous/habitual sense)
yin – verbal noun of yi with a linker -n
ina yin waya – I am (currently) making a phone call / I am talking on the phone / I usually make phone calls.

Contrast:

A daren Lahadi, na yi waya da ’yar uwata – On Sunday night, I talked with my sister (finished event).
A daren Lahadi, ina yin waya da ’yar uwata – On Sunday night, I was talking with my sister / I usually talk with my sister (depending on context).

Is the word order “na yi waya da ’yar uwata minti talatin daga ƙarfe bakwai zuwa takwas” fixed, or can I move elements around?

Hausa word order is fairly flexible for time and duration phrases, though the basic S–V–(objects)–(other info) structure is stable.

Very natural:

A daren Lahadi, na yi waya da ’yar uwata minti talatin daga ƙarfe bakwai zuwa takwas.

You could also say:

A daren Lahadi, daga ƙarfe bakwai zuwa takwas na yi waya da ’yar uwata minti talatin.
A daren Lahadi, na yi waya minti talatin da ’yar uwata daga ƙarfe bakwai zuwa takwas.

However:

Keep na yi waya (verb phrase) close together.
Keep da ’yar uwata right after waya, because yi waya da X is a tight unit (“talk on the phone with X”).

So, don’t split yi waya and da ’yar uwata too far apart:

❌ na yi da ’yar uwata waya minti talatin … (understandable but not natural)

How do I pronounce ’yar, ƙarfe, and uwata? Especially the ’ and ƙ sounds.

Pronunciation tips (approximate, for an English speaker):

’yar
- The ’ marks a glottal stop (like the break in English “uh-oh”).
- ’yar ≈ [ʔjar]
- Start with a tiny “catch” in your throat, then say something like English “yar” (as in “yard” without the d).
ƙarfe
- ƙ is an ejective k, produced with a little “pop”, made further back:
  - Try saying k but with a stronger burst of air and a tighter closure, sometimes with the glottis.
- ƙarfe ≈ something like “KAR-feh”, but with that crisp, popped k.
uwata
- u as in “put” (but a bit shorter and clearer),
- wa like “wa” in “water” (British-ish),
- ta like “ta” in “taco”.
- uwata ≈ “oo-WA-ta”, with the stress lightly on the middle syllable.

In connected speech:

da ’yar uwata – you’ll often hear it smoothly as something like “da yaruwáta”, but with that tiny throat break before ’yar in very careful speech.

Can I replace A daren Lahadi with other time expressions like “on Sunday evening” or “last Sunday night”? How would I say those?

Yes. Some common variants:

On Sunday evening / at Sunday night
- A daren Lahadi – on Sunday night (neutral)
- Da yammacin Lahadi – on Sunday evening (literally “on Sunday’s afternoon/evening”)
Last Sunday night
- A daren Lahadi da ya wuce – on last/past Sunday night
- In context, just A daren Lahadi might already be understood as “last Sunday night”, especially in a past narrative.
Every Sunday night
- Kowane daren Lahadi or kowace daren Lahadi – every Sunday night
- Ina yin waya da ’yar uwata kowane daren Lahadi. – I talk to my sister every Sunday night.

Can I shorten the sentence and still be correct? What are natural shorter versions?

Yes, several shorter, natural options:

Drop the detailed time range:
- A daren Lahadi, na yi waya da ’yar uwata minti talatin.
  → On Sunday night, I talked to my sister for thirty minutes.
Drop the exact duration, keep the range:
- A daren Lahadi, na yi waya da ’yar uwata daga ƙarfe bakwai zuwa takwas.
  → On Sunday night, I talked to my sister from seven to eight.
Very simple:
- A daren Lahadi, na yi waya da ’yar uwata.
  → On Sunday night, I talked to my sister (on the phone).

All of these are grammatically correct; you choose based on how much detail you want to give.