Breakdown of Idan muka yi magana ba tare da hankali ba, za mu iya yin kuskure fiye da yadda muke so.
Questions & Answers about Idan muka yi magana ba tare da hankali ba, za mu iya yin kuskure fiye da yadda muke so.
Idan is a subordinating conjunction that usually means “if” or “when(ever)” in conditional sentences.
In this sentence, it introduces a general condition:
- Idan muka yi magana… = If / When we speak…
Often idan in Hausa covers both English ideas “if” and “whenever” (a general rule), so context decides which feels more natural in English. Here it’s more like:
- If / Whenever we speak without thinking, we can make more mistakes than we’d like.
Both muka and mun are related to the 1st person plural perfective (“we did”), but they are used in different environments:
- mun = normal perfective subject pronoun
- Mun yi magana. – We spoke / we have spoken.
- muka = “relative/focused” perfective form, used in clauses that are:
- dependent (e.g., after idan, lokacin da, kafin), or
- relative / focused clauses.
In conditional clauses, you typically use the -ka series (relative/focused form):
- Idan mun yi magana… – grammatical, but sounds more like a main clause “if we have already spoken… (with that result…)”
- Idan muka yi magana… – the common, natural pattern for a general condition “if/whenever we speak…”.
So muka here signals that this is a subordinate, conditional situation, not a completed main action in time.
The verb yi means “to do / make”, and magana means “speech, talk, words”.
So yi magana literally is “to do speech / to do talking”, but idiomatically it just means “to speak, to talk”. This is very common in Hausa:
- yi magana da shi – speak with him
- Kar ka yi magana. – Don’t speak.
You almost always need yi with magana when you mean “to speak”. Just saying magana alone usually means “(the) speech, talk” as a noun, not the action of speaking:
- Maganarsa ta yi kyau. – His speech/words were good.
The pattern ba tare da X ba is a very common idiom meaning “without X”.
Breakdown:
- tare da = together with / along with
- hankali = sense, thought, care, intelligence
- ba … ba = the standard Hausa negation frame, here wrapping the prepositional phrase:
- ba tare da hankali ba = literally not (together with sense) → “without thinking / without care / carelessly”
Examples with the same pattern:
- Ya tafi ba tare da izini ba. – He went without permission.
- Ta fara magana ba tare da shiri ba. – She started speaking without preparation.
So the two ba’s are just the normal negative frame, and tare da hankali is what’s being negated.
Hankali is a rich word; it roughly covers:
- sense
- reason
- intelligence
- careful thought / attention
In this sentence, ba tare da hankali ba is best understood as:
- without thinking
- without using our sense
- without care / carelessly
So it’s broader than just “thinking”; it’s more like “good sense / presence of mind / careful attention”. That’s why it naturally translates into “carelessly” or “without thinking” in English.
Both are possible, but they don’t mean exactly the same thing:
za mu yi kuskure
- literally: we will make a mistake
- simple future: the making of a mistake itself.
za mu iya yin kuskure
- literally: we will be able to do/make a mistake → we can / may make a mistake
- iya = to be able (to), can
- expresses possibility/ability, not certainty.
In this context, the idea is:
- If we speak carelessly, we *can end up making more mistakes than we’d like.*
So iya adds the nuance of potential (it can happen), which fits much better than a plain guaranteed future.
Yin is the verbal noun of yi (“to do/make”). Hausa often uses verbal nouns after certain verbs like iya (can), so (to want/like), fara (to start), etc.
- yi (infinitive) → yin (verbal noun, “doing”)
So:
- iya yin kuskure = to be able to do the making of a mistake → to be able to make a mistake
You cannot normally say:
- ✗ iya yi kuskure (ungrammatical in standard Hausa)
After iya, you want a verbal noun:
- za mu iya yin magana. – we can speak
- ba zan iya yin hakan ba. – I can’t do that.
So yin here is the correct nominalized form required by the grammar after iya.
Kuskure means “mistake, error”. In this sentence it is used in an indefinite, general sense:
- yin kuskure – to make (a) mistake / to make mistakes (general)
You only add -n (or -r etc.) when you need a definite or possessive form:
- kuskurenmu – our mistake
- kuskuren da muka yi – the mistake that we made
Here we are talking about mistakes in general, not a specific one, so bare kuskure is correct and natural.
Fiye da means “more than” (in comparisons).
You can use it with:
Adjectives / adverbs
- Yana da kyau fiye da jiya. – It is better than yesterday.
- Ta yi sauri fiye da ni. – She was faster than me.
Nouns / noun phrases
- Yana da kuɗi fiye da su. – He has more money than them.
In the sentence:
- yin kuskure fiye da yadda muke so
- to make mistakes more than (the way) we want → more mistakes than we’d like
So fiye da marks the greater amount or degree in the comparison.
Yadda means roughly “how, the way that” and introduces a clause describing manner / degree.
- yadda muke so = the way we want / how we want
In fiye da yadda muke so, you literally get:
- more than the way we want (it to be)
You normally need yadda here. Saying ✗ fiye da muke so is not natural; fiye da expects a full phrase or clause as its complement, and yadda nicely turns the clause into “the way in which…”.
You will see this pattern very often:
- Ya fi yadda na zata. – He was more (than) I expected.
- Ruwan ya yi yawa fiye da yadda ake bukata. – The water is more than is needed.
So yadda is the link that makes “how we want (it)” into a comparative standard.
Both relate to the imperfective (“we want”) but they are different forms:
- muna so
- ordinary, independent imperfective: we want / we like (generally, right now)
- muke so
- relative/focused imperfective, used inside relative, focused, or certain subordinate clauses.
Compare:
- Muna so. – We want (it). (simple statement)
- Abin da muke so… – What we want…
- fiye da yadda muke so – more than how we want (it)
Because muke so is part of the clause introduced by yadda, which is functioning a bit like a relative clause (“the way that we want”), the -ke form (muke) is the right one.
Yes. Hausa allows both orders for conditional sentences:
If-clause first (as in the original):
- Idan muka yi magana ba tare da hankali ba, za mu iya yin kuskure…
Main clause first:
- Za mu iya yin kuskure fiye da yadda muke so idan muka yi magana ba tare da hankali ba.
Both are grammatical and natural.
Putting idan… first often emphasizes the condition; putting the main clause first can emphasize the result. The grammar (verb forms like muka, za mu iya) stays the same; only the order changes.