Learn Hardcore Hausa: Tun jiya da dare nake jin amo daga titin birni. - Since last night I have been hearing noise from the city street.

Jiya da dare nake jin amo suggests “I was hearing noise last night” (focusing just on that time).
Tun jiya da dare nake jin amo means “I have been hearing noise since last night” – it emphasizes that the action started back then and is still continuing up to now.

So tun + time expression is often used to express an ongoing situation that began in the past, similar to English “since yesterday night” / “since last night.”

Why is nake jin amo used instead of ina jin amo?

Both nake and ina are forms of the verb to be used to mark progressive or continuous aspect.

ina jin amo = “I am hearing noise” (plain present/ongoing).
nake jin amo after tun emphasizes a state that has lasted from some point in the past up to now.

The pattern tun + time phrase + nake + verb is a very common way to say “I have been doing X since [time]” in Hausa. So tun jiya da dare nake jin amo is more natural than tun jiya da dare ina jin amo when you mean “have been hearing noise (up to now).”

What does jiya da dare literally mean, and how does it correspond to English “last night”?

Literally:

jiya = yesterday
dare = night
da here functions like “at / in” linking the time and part of day as one unit.

So jiya da dare is something like “yesterday at night”, which idiomatically matches English “last night.” Hausa often says [day] da [part of day] to form time expressions like:

jiya da safe – yesterday morning
jiya da yamma – yesterday evening
jiya da dare – last night

Could I move the time phrase and say Nake jin amo tun jiya da dare daga titin birni? Is the word order flexible?

You can move the time phrase, but not with complete freedom. The most natural orders are:

Tun jiya da dare nake jin amo daga titin birni.
Nake jin amo daga titin birni tun jiya da dare.

Placing tun jiya da dare at the very beginning is very common and sounds smooth. Putting it at the very end is also possible and understood.

However, starting the sentence with Nake is unusual in normal speech; you’d normally start with the time phrase, subject, or some other element, not directly with the verb form nake. So it’s better to say:

Ni tun jiya da dare nake jin amo daga titin birni.
or
Tun jiya da dare nake jin amo daga titin birni.

In jin amo, what is jin and what is amo?

ji is the verb “to feel / to sense / to hear” depending on context.
jin is the verbal noun or “-ing” form: hearing, feeling, sensing.
amo means “sound, noise” (often neutral, but in this context it feels like disturbing noise).

So jin amo literally means “the hearing of sound/noise”, which corresponds to “hearing noise” in English.

Is amo always negative, like “noise,” or can it also be neutral, like “sound”?

Amo can be either neutral or negative depending on context.

Neutral: Na ji amo daga cikin gida. – I heard a sound from inside the house. (could just be neutral information)
Negative: Akwai amo sosai a dare. – There is a lot of noise at night. (often sounds like a disturbance)

Often, in sentences like your example about the street at night, amo implies bothersome noise, but the word itself just means sound/noise. For clearly “noise” in the sense of commotion, people also say hayaniya (commotion, noisy bustle).

What does daga titin birni mean exactly, and how is it built?

daga titin birni can be broken down as:

daga – from
titi – street, road
-n – a linking suffix (genitive/construct marker)
birni – city, town

So titin birni = “the street of the city / the city’s street.”
Putting it together, daga titin birni = “from the city street” or “from the street in town.”

The -n on titi is very common when one noun is directly followed by another it belongs to: titin birni, gidan malam (the teacher’s house), motar baffa (uncle’s car), etc.

Could I say daga titi na birni instead of daga titin birni?

You could hear titi na birni, but:

titin birni (with the -n linker) is the more natural, compact, and common way to form this noun–noun relationship.
titi na birni feels more spelled out and slightly less idiomatic in this context, and in many cases could sound more formal or less smooth.

In everyday Hausa, the linking suffix -n / -r / -ar is the default for “X of Y” when both X and Y are nouns. So daga titin birni is the best choice here.

Where is the subject “I” in this sentence? Why is ni not written?

The subject pronoun is implicitly contained in nake.

ni nake = I am (doing something now / continuously)
kai kake = you (m.sg.) are
shi yake = he is, etc.

In Tun jiya da dare nake jin amo…, the ni (I) is understood from the verb form -ke, which here is used for 1st person singular in this construction. In context, listeners automatically understand it as “I have been hearing noise…”

You can make it explicit:
Ni tun jiya da dare nake jin amo daga titin birni.
But it’s not necessary unless you want to stress “I (as opposed to someone else)”.

How would I negate this and say “Since last night I have not been hearing noise from the city street”?

A natural negative version is:

Tun jiya da dare ban dinga jin amo daga titin birni ba.

Explanation:

ba … ba – the standard negative frame.
ban dinga jin amo – I have not been (regularly) hearing noise.
- dinga can suggest continuous or habitual action; with ba it fits “have not been …”.

If you want a simpler form, you could also say:

Tun jiya da dare ban jin amo daga titin birni ba. – Since last night, I don’t hear any noise from the city street.

This second one is more like a present fact (“I don’t hear any noise”) anchored with tun jiya da dare.

How would I say “From tonight, I will be hearing noise from the city street”?

One natural way is:

Daga yau da dare zan rika jin amo daga titin birni.

Breakdown:

daga yau da dare – from tonight (lit. from today at night).
zan – I will (future marker: za
- ni).
rika jin amo – keep/hear repeatedly, often used for repeated or ongoing actions in the future.
daga titin birni – from the city street.

So the whole sentence expresses the idea that starting tonight, you expect ongoing/repeated noise from the city street.