Wani lokaci ni da ’yar uwata muna zuwa kasuwa.

Sometimes my sister and I go to the market.

Breakdown of Wani lokaci ni da ’yar uwata muna zuwa kasuwa.

• ni: I
• ne: to be
• da: and
• kasuwa: the market
• ’yar uwa: the sister
• zuwa: to
• wani lokaci: sometimes

Questions & Answers about Wani lokaci ni da ’yar uwata muna zuwa kasuwa.

What does Wani lokaci literally mean, and is it the usual way to say sometimes?

Wani lokaci is made of:

• wani – a / some (one), an indefinite word
• lokaci – time

So literally it is some time or at some time(s), and together it works as sometimes.

Yes, Wani lokaci is a very common and natural way to say sometimes in Hausa, especially at the beginning of a sentence:

• Wani lokaci muna zuwa kasuwa. – Sometimes we go to the market.

Why does the sentence start with Wani lokaci? Could it go somewhere else?

Putting Wani lokaci at the beginning highlights the idea of sometimes:

• Wani lokaci ni da ’yar uwata muna zuwa kasuwa.
  Sometimes my sister and I go to the market. (emphasis on sometimes)

Hausa word order is flexible, so you can also say:

• Ni da ’yar uwata wani lokaci muna zuwa kasuwa.
• Ni da ’yar uwata muna zuwa kasuwa wani lokaci.

All of these are understandable. The meaning is basically the same, but putting Wani lokaci first is the most typical and sounds very smooth and natural.

How does ni da ’yar uwata express my sister and I? What is the role of da?

Breakdown:

• ni – I / me
• da – here it works like and (or with) joining two people
• ’yar uwata – my sister (see the next question for details)

So ni da ’yar uwata literally is I and my sister, which we translate in natural English as my sister and I.

The word da is a very common linker. Between people or things, it often means and:

• Ali da Musa – Ali and Musa
• ni da kai – me and you / you and I

What exactly does ’yar uwata mean, word by word?

’yar uwata can be broken down like this:

• ’yar – daughter / girl / female child of …
• uwa – mother (and also used in extended kin terms)
• -ta (in uwata) – a possessive ending meaning my in this context

The structure is basically:

• ’yar uwa – female child of a (my) mother → sister
• uwa + ta → uwata – my mother
• ’yar uwata – daughter of my mother → my sister

So you can think of ’yar uwata as my sister. For comparison:

• ɗan uwana – my brother (male child of my mother)

What is the little mark before ’yar, and how is it pronounced?

The mark ’ in ’yar represents a glottal stop, a brief catch in the throat, like the break in the middle of uh‑oh in English.

• ’yar starts with this small throat stop, then yar.
• It is different from just yar without the mark.

In many learning contexts you can simply remember ’yar as the normal written form for daughter / girl / female child of …, and not worry too much about the exact phonetics at first.

Why is the verb muna zuwa two parts? What does each word mean?

muna zuwa is made of:

• muna – we are (doing) / we (do) …
  
  • historically mu (we) + na (marker for present/progressive), fused into one word
• zuwa – go (here functioning as the main verb to go)

So:

• muna zuwa ≈ we go / we are going

With Wani lokaci, the whole clause muna zuwa kasuwa is best understood as we (sometimes) go to the market, i.e. a habitual action, even though the form is also used for we are going in the present.

Could I say mu na zuwa kasuwa instead of muna zuwa kasuwa?

You may hear mu na zuwa kasuwa in speech, and people will understand it. However:

• In standard written Hausa, the fused form muna is preferred.
• Everyday, natural speech very often uses the fused forms:
  nina / kina / yana / muna / kuna / suna → normally written as ina / kina / yana / muna / kuna / suna.

So for learning purposes, it is better to use muna zuwa kasuwa as the basic, most standard form.

How does the sentence show that the subject is we and not just I?

There are two signals of we:

1. ni da ’yar uwata – I and my sister → a group of two people
2. muna – the verb form for we (1st person plural)

Because the subject is ni da ’yar uwata (two people), the verb must agree and use the we form:

• muna – we (are) …, correct
• ina – I (am) …, would be wrong here

So:

• Ni da ’yar uwata muna zuwa kasuwa. – correct
• ✗ Ni da ’yar uwata ina zuwa kasuwa. – ungrammatical (mismatch between plural subject and singular verb form).

Why is there no separate word for to before kasuwa?

In muna zuwa kasuwa:

• zuwa already carries the idea of going (to).
• The place you go to (kasuwa – market) follows directly, without a separate preposition like English to.

So zuwa kasuwa is simply go (to) market.

Hausa does have a word zuwa that can act like a preposition to / towards in other constructions, for example:

• muna tafiya zuwa kasuwa – we are walking to the market

Here:

• tafiyā – travel / walking
• zuwa – to (preposition)
• kasuwa – market

But in your sentence, zuwa is the main verb to go, and kasuwa just follows it as the destination.

Does kasuwa mean a market or the market? How do we know?

Hausa does not use fixed words for a and the the way English does. A bare noun like kasuwa can be translated as either a market or the market, depending on context.

In everyday use, muna zuwa kasuwa is usually understood as:

• we go to the market (the local, known market in town)

If you really want to make it clearly definite, you might hear forms like:

• kasuwar nan – this market
• waccan kasuwar – that market

But in a simple sentence like this, kasuwa on its own is enough, and English chooses the because we typically mean the usual, known market.

Can this sentence also mean My sister and I are going to the market right now?

On its own, muna zuwa kasuwa can mean either:

• we are going to the market (now / these days), or
• we go to the market (habitually)

The context or extra time words decide which meaning is intended.

However, in this sentence you have Wani lokaci (sometimes) at the start. That forces a habitual reading:

• Wani lokaci ni da ’yar uwata muna zuwa kasuwa.
  → Sometimes my sister and I go to the market.

With Wani lokaci, it does not naturally mean we are going right now. For right now, you would say something like:

• Yanzu ni da ’yar uwata muna zuwa kasuwa. – Right now, my sister and I are going to the market.