Bayan mun gama cin abinci, yara za su huta.

After we finish eating, the children will rest.

Breakdown of Bayan mun gama cin abinci, yara za su huta.

• abinci: the food
• yaro: the child
• ci: to eat
• su: they

Questions & Answers about Bayan mun gama cin abinci, yara za su huta.

What does bayan mean here, and where does it go in the sentence?

Bayan means “after” in this sentence.

• It introduces a time clause: Bayan mun gama cin abinci = After we finished eating.
• It normally comes at the beginning of the clause it introduces, just like “after” in English when used as a conjunction.

You can also flip the clauses in Hausa, just like in English:

• Bayan mun gama cin abinci, yara za su huta.
  After we finish eating, the children will rest.

• Yara za su huta bayan mun gama cin abinci.
  The children will rest after we finish eating.

Both orders are natural.

What exactly does mun mean, and how is it different from mu?

Mu is the independent pronoun “we”.

Mun is a combined form: it’s the subject pronoun “we” + perfective marker (often written together), roughly “we have / we did”.

So in:

• Mun gama cin abinci.
  We have finished eating / We finished eating.

mun marks:

• subject: we
• aspect: completed action (perfective)

You cannot say *mu gama cin abinci in this context; you must use the perfective form mun with the verb.

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