Kalli talabijin da yamma.

Watch television in the evening.

Breakdown of Kalli talabijin da yamma.

• da: during
• yamma: the evening
• talabijin: the television
• kalli: to watch

Questions & Answers about Kalli talabijin da yamma.

In Kalli talabijin da yamma, who is being told to watch? There’s no word for you in the sentence.

Hausa doesn’t need to say you in a basic command.

• Kalli is an imperative verb: Kalli = Watch! / Look at! (to one person).
• Because it’s an imperative, “you” is understood from the verb form itself.

So Kalli talabijin da yamma literally means:

• Watch television in the evening (you – singular, implied).

If you want to make the subject explicit and emphasize you, you can add a pronoun in a fuller sentence, for example:

• Kai ka kalli talabijin da yamma. – You (male) watch TV in the evening.
• Ke ki kalli talabijin da yamma. – You (female) watch TV in the evening.

But for a simple command, Kalli … by itself is completely natural.

What exactly does kalli mean, and how is it related to other forms like kallo or kalla?

Kalli comes from the Hausa verb for to look at / watch. You’ll meet several related forms:

• kallo – verbal noun: watching / looking (at something)
  
  • kallon talabijin – watching television
• ya kalla – he watched / he looked at (past/perfective)
• kalli! – imperative: Watch! / Look at! (addressing one person)

So in your sentence:

• Kalli = Watch!
• talabijin = television / TV
• da yamma = in the evening

Put together: Kalli talabijin da yamma – Watch TV in the evening.

What does talabijin mean exactly? Is it like “TV” (the device) or “television” (the medium)?

Talabijin is a loanword that corresponds to English television / TV, and it can refer to:

1. The device – the TV set

   • Na sayi sabon talabijin. – I bought a new TV.

2. Television as a medium – TV in general

   • Ina kallon talabijin. – I watch TV.

So in Kalli talabijin da yamma, it is understood the same way as English:

• Watch TV in the evening (i.e., watch TV programs in the evening, using the TV).

What does da mean in da yamma? I thought da meant and / with. How does it end up meaning in the evening?

You’re right that da is very flexible. Its main meanings include:

• with – Ina tafiya da kai. – I’m going with you.
• and – shi da ita – he and she / he and her

But with time of day words, da forms fixed expressions that mean “at / in (that time of day)”:

• da safe – in the morning
• da rana – in the afternoon / daytime
• da yamma – in the evening
• da dare – at night

So da yamma is best understood as a set phrase:

• da yamma = in the evening, even though da on its own usually means with / and.

Does da yamma mean “the evening” in general, or a specific evening like “this evening”?

On its own, da yamma usually means “in the evening” as a time of day in general:

• Ina zuwa aiki da yamma. – I go to work in the (late) afternoon/evening.

For a specific evening, Hausa normally adds other words:

• yammacin nan – this evening
• da yammacin nan – in/this evening (today)

So:

• Kalli talabijin da yamma.
  
  • Neutral: Watch TV in the evening. (general time of day)

In context, it can refer to this evening if everyone knows you’re talking about today, but grammatically it’s more general.

Why isn’t there any word for a or the in Kalli talabijin da yamma? How do articles work in Hausa?

Hausa doesn’t have separate words like English a, an, the. Instead, it uses:

• Word order and context to show whether something is specific or general.
• A suffix like -n / -r / -ɗin / -ɗiyar to mark definiteness or link a noun to something.

Compare:

• Kalli talabijin da yamma.

  • Can be understood as “Watch TV in the evening” or “Watch the TV in the evening” depending on context.

• Kalli talabijin ɗin nan da yamma.

  • Watch this (particular) TV in the evening.
  • ɗin nan adds the idea of this specific one.

So in your basic sentence, talabijin is just “TV / television”, and English translators choose a or the according to context.

How would I say “I watch television in the evening” instead of giving a command?

For a statement about your habit, you wouldn’t use the imperative kalli. You’d normally say:

1. Ina kallon talabijin da yamma.
   
   • Literally: I am in the watching of TV in the evening.
   • Natural English: I watch TV in the evening / I usually watch TV in the evening.

If you want to stress that it’s your usual habit, you can add kan:

2. Na kan kalli talabijin da yamma.
   
   • I usually / I tend to watch TV in the evening.

So:

• Kalli talabijin da yamma. – Watch TV in the evening. (command)
• Ina kallon talabijin da yamma. – I watch TV in the evening. (statement)

How do I say “Don’t watch TV in the evening”? What’s the negative version of this command?

To make a negative command in Hausa, you typically use kada + pronoun + verb. For one person:

• (To a man) Kada ka kalli talabijin da yamma.
• (To a woman) Kada ki kalli talabijin da yamma.

Both mean: “Don’t watch TV in the evening.”

Breakdown (male version):

• kada – don’t / do not (for prohibitions)
• ka – you (male singular, subject pronoun)
• kalli – watch (imperative‑like form)
• talabijin da yamma – TV in the evening

So the positive/negative pair is:

• Kalli talabijin da yamma. – Watch TV in the evening.
• Kada ka/ki kalli talabijin da yamma. – Don’t watch TV in the evening.

How do I say this sentence to more than one person? Is there a plural “you” form of the command?

Yes. Hausa has a special plural imperative using ku for you (plural).

• Ku kalli talabijin da yamma. – You (all) watch TV in the evening.

Compare:

• Kalli talabijin da yamma. – singular you (one person)
• Ku kalli talabijin da yamma. – plural you (more than one person)

For the negative plural:

• Kada ku kalli talabijin da yamma. – Don’t (you all) watch TV in the evening.

Can I move da yamma to the front, like “In the evening, watch TV”? Is the word order flexible?

Yes, Hausa lets you move time expressions to the front for emphasis or style. Both of these are possible:

1. Kalli talabijin da yamma.

   • Neutral order: Watch TV in the evening.

2. Da yamma, kalli talabijin.

   • Fronted time phrase: In the evening, watch TV. (emphasis on evening)

In speech, the choice is often about what you want to highlight. Written forms may show the pause with a comma, but in Hausa itself it’s just intonation.

What’s the difference between kalli and other verbs like duba? Could I say Duba talabijin da yamma?

Both kalli and duba relate to looking, but they’re used a bit differently:

• kalli – look at / watch

  • Very natural for watching TV, films, games, people, etc.
  • Ina kallon fim. – I’m watching a film.

• duba – look at / check / examine

  • More like check, inspect, look over
  • Duba littafin. – Check / look at the book.
  • Zan duba waya ta. – I’ll check my phone.

For television, kalli talabijin is the standard expression.
Duba talabijin would sound odd in most contexts; it would suggest checking the TV (as an object) rather than watching programs on it.

How do you pronounce the words in Kalli talabijin da yamma? Anything important for an English speaker to notice?

Approximate pronunciation (in simple English terms):

• Kalli – KAH-lee

  • ll is a double consonant; hold the l a bit longer than in English “cal-lee”.

• talabijin – roughly ta-la-BEE-jin

  • Four syllables: ta‑la‑bi‑jin
  • The j is like English “j” in “jam”.

• da – da (short, like the “da” in “data” but without a strong schwa).

• yamma – roughly YAM-ma

  • mm is doubled; hold the m slightly longer: yam‑ma.
  • Vowels are short; don’t stretch them like English diphthongs.

Hausa is tonal, so real pronunciation also involves pitch differences, but early teaching materials often leave tones unmarked. For a start, focusing on clear vowels and doubling of consonants (ll, mm) will already help your speech sound much more natural.

Can I use the same pattern with other times of day, like “in the morning” or “at night”?

Yes. Da yamma fits into a common pattern of da + time‑of‑day noun. You can swap in other times:

• da safe – in the morning
• da rana – in the afternoon / daytime
• da yamma – in the evening
• da dare – at night

Examples:

• Kalli talabijin da safe. – Watch TV in the morning.
• Kalli talabijin da dare. – Watch TV at night.

So once you understand Kalli talabijin da yamma, you can plug in other time phrases in exactly the same way.