Learn Hardcore Hausa: Lokacin da wuta ta kashe, muke amfani da murhu na itace a ɗakin girki. - When the electricity goes off, we use a wood stove in the kitchen.

In use, Lokacin da normally introduces a real time situation (“when something happens”), not a doubtful one. For a more “if/when” conditional sense, Hausa often uses idan. So:

Lokacin da wuta ta kashe… = When(ever) the power goes off…
Idan wuta ta kashe… = If/When the power goes off… (more conditional)

Why is wuta understood as “electricity/power” here and not just “fire”?

The word wuta covers several related ideas:

fire, flame
electricity, electric power
light (from electricity or fire)

Context decides the meaning. In this sentence, talking about switching to a wood stove in the kitchen when wuta ta kashe makes it natural to understand:

wuta → electricity / electric power

If the context were a campfire going out, it could instead mean literal “fire.”

Why does it say wuta ta kashe and not wuta ya kashe? What is ta here?

In Hausa, nouns have grammatical gender, and pronouns agree with that gender.

wuta is grammatically feminine.
The 3rd person singular feminine subject pronoun is ta (“she/it (fem.)”).
The 3rd person singular masculine is ya (“he/it (masc.)”).

So:

wuta ta kashe = the electricity went off / is off
*wuta ya kashe would be ungrammatical, because ya doesn’t match the feminine noun.

But doesn’t kashe mean “to kill”? How does wuta ta kashe end up meaning “the electricity went off”?

Yes, kashe basically means to kill / to extinguish / to turn off.

Depending on the subject and context:

Na kashe wuta – I turned the light/electricity off
Ya kashe shi – He killed him / turned it off
Wuta ta kashe – literally the electricity has been extinguished / is off → idiomatically the power went off / the power is out.

So with wuta as subject, kashe is understood as “go off / be extinguished,” not “commit murder.”

What tense/aspect is ta kashe and muke amfani da? Is this a one‑time event or a habitual action?

ta kashe is the perfective: has gone off / went off.
muke amfani da uses -ke, a focused progressive/habitual form (from mu ke).

Together, with Lokacin da, the sentence usually describes a repeated / habitual situation:

Whenever the power goes off, we use a wood stove in the kitchen.

If you wanted to be very explicitly “general habit,” you could also hear:

Lokacin da wuta ta kashe, mu kan yi amfani da murhu na itace.

But the given sentence already naturally reads as habitual in context.

Why is it muke amfani da and not simply muna amfani da?

Both forms come from combinations of mu (we) + aspect marker:

muna = mu na → ordinary progressive/habitual: we are / we usually…
muke = mu ke → focus form: used when something is emphasized or when something has been fronted (like a time clause, a question word, or a relative clause).

After a fronted time clause like Lokacin da wuta ta kashe, Hausa very often uses the -ke focus form in the main clause:

Lokacin da wuta ta kashe, muke amfani da…
“When the power goes off, (it is) we (who) use…”

You could say muna amfani da and people would understand, but muke sounds especially natural in this structure and slightly emphasizes what we (then) do in that situation.

What exactly does amfani da mean? How do you say “to use” in Hausa?

The usual way to say “to use / make use of” in Hausa is:

yin amfani da – literally doing use with.

Breaking it down:

yi – to do/make
amfani – use / benefit (noun)
da – with

In the sentence:

muke amfani da murhu na itace is a slightly shortened form of muke yin amfani da murhu na itace – we (do) make use of a wood stove.

Dropping yi / yin in this particular expression is common and natural: amfani da X is widely used to mean “(the) use of X / to use X.”

How is murhu na itace built, and why do we need na there?

murhu na itace literally means “stove of wood” → wood stove.

murhu – stove, cooker
na – genitive linker “of”
itace – wood

In Hausa, when one noun modifies another (“X of Y”, “Y‑X”), you normally join them with na / ne / n:

murhu na itace – stove of wood (wood stove)
kofin shayi – cup (n) of tea
rigar sanyi – coat of cold → coat for cold weather

So you can’t normally just put the two nouns side by side (*murhu itace); you need the linking element (na/ne/n) to show the relationship.

Why is it ɗakin girki and not ɗaki na girki? What is that -n doing?

ɗakin girki is made from:

ɗaki – room
-n – genitive linker (short form of na)
girki – cooking

So it literally means “room of cooking” → kitchen.

Hausa uses:

na / ne / n as linkers between nouns.
After a vowel, na is usually written as -n and attached to the preceding word:
- ɗaki + na girki → ɗakin girki
- ruwa + na sha → ruwan sha (drinking water)

You could say ɗaki na girki in slow, very explicit speech, but the standard, natural form is with the attached -n: ɗakin girki.

What does the preposition a in a ɗakin girki mean? Is it always “in”?

The preposition a is very common and usually corresponds to “in / at / on” depending on context:

a gida – at home / in the house
a kasuwa – at the market
a ɗakin girki – in the kitchen

Sometimes Hausa also uses cikin for “inside (the inside of)”:

a ɗakin girki – in the kitchen (location)
cikin ɗakin girki – inside the kitchen (emphasizing interior space)

In your sentence, a ɗakin girki is the normal way to say “in the kitchen.”

Can I change the word order and say the main clause first, like in English?

Yes. You can put the main clause first and the time clause second:

Muke amfani da murhu na itace lokacin da wuta ta kashe.

This is grammatical and understandable. The difference is:

Lokacin da wuta ta kashe, muke amfani da murhu na itace.
– Slightly more natural, and it emphasizes the condition/time (“When the power goes off…”) first.
Muke amfani da murhu na itace lokacin da wuta ta kashe.
– Puts more initial weight on what “we do,” then adds “when the power goes off” as extra information.

Both orders are used; starting with Lokacin da… is very common for this kind of sentence.

What is the letter ɗ in ɗakin, and how is it pronounced?

The letter ɗ represents a special sound in Hausa called an implosive d.

Pronunciation tips:

It’s written ɗ ɗ (lowercase/uppercase).
It is somewhat like an English “d”, but:
- the tongue is a bit further back,
- and there is a slight inward “gulping” movement of air.

For many learners, a close approximation is to pronounce it as a clear “d” but with the tongue a bit tenser and farther back. So ɗaki will sound roughly like “dah-kee”, but with that special ɗ quality.