Fim ɗin da muka kalla jiya ya koya mana yadda za mu girmama haƙƙin al'umma.

yesterday

Breakdown of Fim ɗin da muka kalla jiya ya koya mana yadda za mu girmama haƙƙin al'umma.

• mu: we
• da: that
• mu: us

Questions & Answers about Fim ɗin da muka kalla jiya ya koya mana yadda za mu girmama haƙƙin al'umma.

What does fim ɗin mean, and why is ɗin added to fim?

Fim means film / movie. The little word ɗin is a definite marker, roughly like English “the”.

• fim ɗin ≈ the film
• fim by itself ≈ a film / films (in general)

In Hausa, this definite marker attaches to the end of the noun phrase:

• mutum ɗin – the person
• littafi ɗin – the book

There are different forms of the definite marker (-n, -r, -ɗin) depending on how the noun ends. With fim, the correct form is ɗin: fim ɗin.

What is the role of da in da muka kalla jiya?

Here, da is a relative particle, like English “that / which” in phrases such as “the film that we watched”.

So:

• da muka kalla jiya = that we watched yesterday

Don’t confuse this with another da that means “and/with” (e.g. Ali da Musa – Ali and Musa; Ina tafiya da shi – I’m going with him).

In this sentence, it is clearly introducing a relative clause describing the film.

Why is it and not for “we watched”?