Learn Hardcore Hausa: Duk lokacin da muke tafiya a titi da dare, Baba yana faɗa mana mu kula da haɗarin motoci. - Whenever we walk in the street at night, father tells us to be careful of the danger from cars.

You can say lokacin da muke tafiya a titi da dare, but that would sound more like “(the) time when we walk at night on the road”, referring to a specific time, not the idea of “whenever” or “every time”.

For the habitual/whenever meaning, duk lokacin da is the natural choice here.

In muke tafiya, why do we have mu inside the verb instead of a separate word for “we”?

In Hausa, the subject pronoun is usually built into the verb phrase:

mu = “we”
ke (here) is a marker used for the present/habitual/progressive with plural subjects.
muke is therefore one “we + aspect marker” chunk.

So:

muke tafiya ≈ “(we) are going / (we) walk / (we) travel (habitually or right now, depending on context)”

You normally do not say something like mu muke tafiya here. The mu is already there inside muke, so muke tafiya itself means “we go / we are going”.

Why is it muke tafiya and not something like mun tafi?

mun tafi and muke tafiya use different aspect/tense meanings:

mun tafi
- mu (we) + -n (perfect marker) + tafi (go)
- Means “we went” or “we have gone” (completed action).
muke tafiya
- mu (we) + ke (habitual/progressive marker) + tafiyà (verbal noun “going / walking / travelling”)
- Means something like “we are going / we walk / we are in the process of going” or “whenever we go”.

In this sentence, the idea is “whenever we are walking / whenever we go”, so the habitual/progressive muke tafiya fits much better than the completed-action mun tafi (“whenever we went” would sound wrong).

What does the preposition a do in a titi?

a is a general preposition that often corresponds to “in / at / on” in English, depending on context.

a gida = at home
a kasuwa = in the market
a titi = on the road / in the street

So a titi is “on the road / in the street”. Hausa doesn’t need a separate preposition for “on” here; a covers it.

How does da dare work? Does da mean “with” here?

Literally, da often means “with / and”, but in fixed time expressions it’s best to think of it as part of an idiom:

da safe = in the morning
da rana = in the afternoon / during the day
da yamma = in the evening
da dare = at night

So da dare is a standard way to say “at night”, not really “with night” in a literal sense.

In this sentence, a titi da dare = “on the road at night”.

Can Baba only mean “my father,” or can it mean just “an older man”?

Baba has two main uses:

As a kinship term / name for your own father
- Like “Dad / Daddy / Father”.
- In many families, people really do call their father simply Baba, and it can function almost like his name.
As a respectful term for an older man
- Similar to saying “sir”, “old man”, “uncle” (in some cultures), or “father” in a respectful, non-literal way.

In your sentence, because it’s “he tells us”, and it’s a family-like context, the natural interpretation is “Dad / Father” (our father). It’s written with a capital in English for that reason, but in Hausa orthography, capitalization is not always strictly used to show this difference.

What is the function of mana in Baba yana faɗa mana?

mana is an object pronoun meaning “to us / for us”.

Hausa has special pronoun forms used after verbs for indirect / direct objects. For the 1st person plural:

mu = we (subject)
mu (separate form) can also be used for emphasis as object.
mana = to us / for us (clitic object pronoun)

In Baba yana faɗa mana…:

yena / yana = he is (doing something continuously / habitually)
faɗa = to say / to tell
mana = to us

So the structure is literally: “Dad is saying (it) to us … / Dad keeps telling us …”

Why is it yane / yana faɗa mana mu kula and not yena ce mu kula or yena gaya mana mu kula?

Several points here:

Verb choice: faɗa
- faɗa commonly means “to say / to tell (someone something)”.
- You could also use gaya in some contexts (gaya mana mu kula = “tell us to be careful”), but faɗa mana is very natural: “he tells us…”.
Why not ce?
- ce is the copula used mainly with nouns/adjectives (e.g. “he is a teacher”, “she is tall”).
- It’s not used for reported speech the way English uses “say” or “tell”. For speaking, you use verbs like faɗa, gaya, ce wa (as in ya ce wa mu…), etc.
Structure with mu kula
- faɗa mana mu kula literally is “tell us: we should be careful / that we should be careful”.
- mu here is a subjunctive form of “we” (see the next question).

What is the role of mu before kula in mu kula da haɗarin motoci?

Here, mu is a subjunctive subject pronoun meaning “that we should…” or “let us…”.

Roughly:

mu kula da… = “that we be careful of… / that we watch out for…”

Hausa uses this subjunctive pronoun + bare verb pattern after verbs like “tell, order, want, ask” when expressing commands, advice, wishes, or things that should happen.

Compare:

Muna kula da haɗarin motoci. = We are careful about the danger of cars. (statement of fact, present)
Mu kula da haɗarin motoci. = Let’s be careful about the danger of cars. / We should be careful...

In Baba yana faɗa mana mu kula…, the idea is: “Dad tells us (that) we should be careful…”

What does kula da mean as a phrase?

kula by itself is “to pay attention / to watch / to be careful / to take care”.

With da, it very often means “to pay attention to / be careful of / watch out for / look after (something or someone)”.

Some examples:

kula da yara = look after children
kula da aikin ka = pay attention to your work
kula da haɗarin motoci = be careful of the danger of cars / watch out for traffic

So in your sentence, mu kula da haɗarin motoci = “that we be careful of the danger of cars.”

How does haɗarin motoci work grammatically? Why is there an -n?

This is a genitive (possessive / of-) construction:

haɗari = danger
motoci = cars
haɗarin motoci = “the danger of cars” / “car danger”

The -n (or -r, depending on the word) is a linking consonant used when one noun is followed by another noun it’s “possessing / relating to”. It’s like saying “danger of cars”.

Structure:

N1 + (‑n / -r) + N2 = “N1 of N2”
- haɗari + n + motoci → haɗarin motoci = danger of cars
- gidan malam = the house of the teacher
- sunan yaro = the name of the child

So haɗarin motoci is exactly “the danger of cars”.

Is the word order fixed? Could I say Baba yana faɗa mana, duk lokacin da muke tafiya a titi da dare, mu kula da haɗarin motoci?

You have some flexibility, but not unlimited freedom.

The original:

Duk lokacin da muke tafiya a titi da dare, Baba yana faɗa mana mu kula da haɗarin motoci.

This has:

A time clause first: Duk lokacin da muke tafiya a titi da dare (“Whenever we walk on the road at night”)
Then the main clause: Baba yana faɗa mana mu kula da haɗarin motoci (“Dad tells us to be careful of the danger of cars.”)

You could move the time clause after the main clause:

Baba yana faɗa mana mu kula da haɗarin motoci duk lokacin da muke tafiya a titi da dare.

This is still natural and means the same thing.

But your suggested version:

Baba yana faɗa mana, duk lokacin da muke tafiya a titi da dare, mu kula da haɗarin motoci.

is less natural in Hausa, because it splits faɗa mana from its complement mu kula da… with the time clause in between. Hausa usually prefers to keep the verb and what follows it (here: mu kula da haɗarin motoci) together.

So preferred orders are:

[Time clause], [main clause].
[Main clause] [time clause].

but try not to break “faɗa mana” away from “mu kula da…”.