Learn Hardcore Hausa: Ni ina jin zafi sosai a rani. - I feel very hot in the dry season.

ina is the subject pronoun form that normally appears before verbs:
- Ina jin zafi. = I feel hot / pain.
ni is a strong / independent pronoun, often used for emphasis or contrast, usually at the beginning of the sentence:
- Ni ina jin zafi sosai a rani. = Me, I really feel the heat in the hot season (even if others don’t).

So Ni ina… is like saying “As for me, I…” or “I personally…”
You could also say simply Ina jin zafi sosai a rani, which is still correct but less emphatic.

What is the function of ina in this sentence?

Ina is the present continuous or progressive subject form for “I”. It’s used with verbs and verbal nouns to show an ongoing or current state/action.

Here it combines with jin (feeling):

ina jin zafi ≈ “I am feeling hot / in pain (now / generally)”.

Compare:

Ina cin abinci. = I am eating (food).
Ina karatu. = I am reading / studying.

So ina works like “am (I)” in sense, but it’s fused into one word and placed directly before the verb form.

What exactly does jin mean here?

Jin is a verbal noun from the verb ji, which basically means “to feel, to sense, to hear” depending on context.

In this sentence:

jin zafi = feeling heat / feeling pain / feeling hot.

Other examples:

Jin daɗi = feeling pleasure / feeling good.
Jin tsoro = feeling fear.
Na ji shi. = I heard him / I understood it.

So in ina jin zafi, you can think of it as literally “I am (in) the feeling of heat/pain.”

Does zafi mean “heat” or “pain” here?

Zafi can mean:

Heat / hot temperature
Sharp pain / burning pain
Spiciness (as in hot food)

In Ni ina jin zafi sosai a rani, the most natural reading is “I feel the heat a lot in the hot season” or “I feel very hot in the hot season”, because:

It’s combined with rani (the hot/dry season).
The context is about weather/season, not physical injury.

If you wanted to emphasize “pain (from illness or injury)”, you’d more often see ciwo:

Ina jin ciwo. = I am in pain / I feel sick.

What does sosai add to the meaning?

Sosai is an intensifier, like “very / really / a lot”.

Ina jin zafi. = I feel hot / I feel pain.
Ina jin zafi sosai. = I feel very hot / I feel a lot of pain.

It usually comes after the word it intensifies:

Yana da kyau sosai. = It is very good.
Ta gaji sosai. = She is very tired.

What does a rani mean, and is it the same as “in the summer”?

A rani literally means “in (the) hot season / in the dry season.”

a = in / at / on (a preposition).
rani = the hot/dry part of the year (roughly like “summer” in many places, but in Hausa contexts it’s often about the very hot dry season).

So sosai a rani suggests “very much in the hot season” (i.e. when the weather is hot and dry).

Not to confuse:

rana = day / sun.
rani = hot season / time of heat (a period in the year).

Why is it a rani and not something like ga rani or da rani?

Hausa typically uses a as the basic preposition for location and time:

a gida = at home
a kasuwa = at the market
a dare = at night
a rani = in the hot season

Ga is more like “here is / there is / look, here” and is used differently:

Ga shi nan. = Here it is.

Da has many uses (“and”, “with”, “having”), but for time expressions like seasons and parts of the day, a is the normal preposition.

Is the word order fixed? Could I move sosai or a rani to other positions?

The typical word order is:

[Subject] + [ina] + [jin] + [object] + [intensifier] + [time/place phrase]

So:

Ni ina jin zafi sosai a rani.

You can sometimes move the time phrase a rani to the front for emphasis:

A rani, ni ina jin zafi sosai. = In the hot season, I feel very hot.

But you would not normally break up jin zafi or separate sosai from what it modifies. So avoid things like:

✗ Ni ina sosai jin zafi a rani. (sounds wrong)
✗ Ni ina jin sosai zafi a rani. (also wrong)

Keep jin zafi sosai together, then add a rani before or after as a time phrase.

How would I say this in the past tense, like “I felt very hot in the hot season (last year)”?

To move from present/progressive (ina) to a completed past, you switch to na:

Na ji zafi sosai a rani. = I felt very hot in the hot season.

Structure:

na = I (past/completed action).
ji = simple verb form (not the verbal noun jin).
zafi sosai a rani = heat very much in the hot season.

Compare:

Ina jin zafi sosai a rani. = I (generally / now) feel very hot in the hot season.
Na ji zafi sosai a rani bara. = I felt very hot in the hot season last year.

Can I drop ni and just say Ina jin zafi sosai a rani?

Yes, you can, and that is actually more common in neutral sentences.

Ina jin zafi sosai a rani. = I feel very hot in the hot season. (normal, unmarked)
Ni ina jin zafi sosai a rani. = I feel very hot in the hot season (implying contrast or emphasis, e.g. others might not).

Use Ni when you want to stress “me in particular”:

Ni ina jin zafi sosai, amma shi baya ji.
I feel the heat a lot, but he doesn’t.

How would I say the negative: “I don’t feel very hot in the hot season”?

One common negative pattern with ina is:

Ba + ni/na + (ba) around the verb phrase.

Two very common variants:

Ba ni jin zafi sosai a rani.
= I do not feel very hot in the hot season.
Bana jin zafi sosai a rani.
= I don’t feel very hot in the hot season.
(bana is a contracted form of ba + na)

Both are widely used. The second (bana jin…) is very common in everyday speech.

If I want to say “I feel pain in my head in the hot season”, how would I change this sentence?

You keep the same basic structure and change zafi to a phrase like ciwon kai (headache / pain in the head):

Ina jin ciwon kai sosai a rani.
= I feel bad headaches / I feel pain in my head a lot in the hot season.

Or with emphasis:

Ni ina jin ciwon kai sosai a rani.
= Me, I really get head pain in the hot season.

Is rani ever used without a in this kind of sentence?

For a time expression like this, you normally keep a rani if you mean “in the hot season”:

Ina jin zafi sosai a rani.

You might see expressions where rani is used as part of a larger noun phrase:

lokacin rani = the hot season / the time of heat
A lokacin rani ina jin zafi sosai. = In the hot season I feel very hot.

But as a simple time phrase, a rani is the natural form.