Breakdown of Lokacin da nake jin koshi, bana son in ga abinci mai mai.
Questions & Answers about Lokacin da nake jin koshi, bana son in ga abinci mai mai.
Lokacin da literally means “the time that/when”. It introduces a clause meaning “when(ever)” something happens.
- Lokacin da nake jin koshi ≈ “(At) the time when I feel full / When I feel full”
- idan can mean “if/when” and is more general.
You could also say:
- Idan ina jin koshi, bana son in ga abinci mai mai.
In many everyday contexts Lokacin da and idan overlap, but:
- Lokacin da focuses more on time (“at the time that…”).
- idan can be conditional (“if”) as well as “when”.
Both forms are related to the idea “I am/feel”, but Hausa grammar treats clauses after da a bit differently.
In a simple main clause you’d normally say:
Ina jin koshi. – “I feel full / I am full.”After da (as in Lokacin da) you usually use subject pronoun + ke, which for 1st singular is na ke → nake:
- Lokacin da nake jin koshi… – “When I’m feeling full…”
Pattern:
- da + ni + ke → da nake
- da + ya + ke → da yake
- da + su + ke → da suke, etc.
So nake here is basically “I am” in the relative/embedded clause that follows da. In an independent sentence, ina is the more usual choice.
ji is a verb meaning “to feel, sense, hear”.
jin is its verbal noun (like “feeling” in English).
- jin koshi literally: “the feeling of fullness / feeling full”.
Some set expressions use jin + a noun:
- Ina jin koshi. – I feel full.
- Ina jin zafi. – I feel pain / I feel hot.
- Ina jin daɗi. – I feel good / I enjoy it.
Just koshi alone is “fullness/satiety” as a noun, but jin koshi is the idiomatic way to say “feel full” in Hausa.
koshi (often written ƙoshi in fully marked spelling) means satiety, the state of being full (from food).
So:
- Ina jin koshi. – “I feel full / I am satisfied (not hungry).”
- Ban ji koshi ba. – “I’m not full yet.”
It’s about not being hungry anymore, rather than “full of things” in a more general sense.
bana is a contraction of ba na:
- ba – negative particle
- na – “I (do)” in the imperfective (“I usually / I generally / I am [doing]”).
So:
- Na son… – I like / I love…
- Ba na son… → Bana son… – I don’t like…
In this sentence:
- Bana son in ga abinci mai mai.
= “I do not like (to) see oily food.”
The base verb is so – “to like / to love / to want”.
Its verbal noun is also so, but in construct state (when it directly governs another word that follows) it takes an -n:
- so → son (before another noun or clause)
Examples:
- son ki – your love / loving you
- son aiki – liking work
- bana son in yi ƙarya – I don’t like to lie
So bana son in ga… literally is “I don’t (have) liking of my seeing…”, i.e. “I don’t like to see…”. The -n links so to the following clause in ga abinci mai mai.
in here is not the same as idan “if/when”.
It is a subjunctive subject pronoun meaning “that I (should)”:
Subjunctive subject pronouns:
- 1sg: in – that I (should)
- 2sg m: ka – that you (should)
- 2sg f: ki – that you (f.) should
- 3sg m: ya – that he should, etc.
So:
- bana son in ga abinci mai mai
≈ “I don’t like that I should see oily food” → “I don’t like to see oily food.”
Other examples:
- Ina so in tafi. – I want to go.
- Ta ƙi in shiga. – She refused to let me enter. (lit. she refused that I enter)
You need in here; you can’t just say bana son ga abinci mai mai.
Here ga is the finite verb “see” used with a subjunctive pronoun:
- in ga… – that I see…
- ka ga… – that you see…
- ya ga… – that he sees…
By contrast, gani is the verbal noun “seeing” (like English “seeing” as a noun).
So:
- in ga abinci – that I see food (finite verb ga)
- ganin abinci – (the) seeing of food (verbal noun gani
- -n)
In this structure (subjunctive with in), you use ga, not gani.
Yes, that is correct and natural:
- Bana son ganin abinci mai mai.
literally: “I don’t like the seeing of oily food” → “I don’t like seeing oily food.”
Here:
- gani (seeing) + -n (construct) → ganin
- son ganin abinci = “liking of seeing food”
The meaning is very close to bana son in ga abinci mai mai.
Slight nuance:
- bana son in ga… focuses on the specific action “that I (should) see…”
- bana son ganin… treats “seeing” more as a general activity (“seeing oily food in general”).
In everyday conversation both are acceptable; choice often comes down to style and rhythm.
mai as a noun means “oil, fat, grease”.
When repeated as mai mai after abinci:
- abinci mai mai = oily / greasy / fatty food
The repetition acts like an intensifier / descriptive pattern and is standard for this expression; it doesn’t simply mean “oil oil”, but “oily/greasy”.
So the whole part:
- abinci mai mai – “oily food”, “greasy food”, “fatty food.”
The basic word order here is quite natural and should be kept:
- Lokacin da nake jin koshi, – time clause (“when I feel full”)
- bana son in ga abinci mai mai. – main clause (“I don’t like to see oily food.”)
You can make small stylistic variations, for example:
- Ba na son ganin abinci mai mai idan ina jin koshi.
…but:
- You should keep the negative pattern (ba na / bana) together with son.
- The subjunctive marker in must stay right before its verb (in ga).
- mai mai should stay right after abinci to keep the meaning “oily food” clear.
Large reorderings like placing abinci mai mai at the very front would sound odd or require extra particles/focus constructions.