Learn Hardcore Hausa: Idan muka soya gyada da dankali tare, gidan yana cika da ƙamshi mai daɗi. - If we fry groundnuts and potatoes together, the house fills with a nice smell.

With a repeated / habitual action like this sentence, it is best read as “when(ever)”:
Idan muka soya gyada da dankali tare… → When(ever) we fry peanuts and potatoes together…
In other contexts, especially when it’s uncertain whether something will happen, idan is closer to “if”:
- Idan ka zo gobe, zan tafi da kai. – If you come tomorrow, I’ll go with you.

So here it suggests a general rule: whenever that situation happens, the result follows.

Why is it Idan muka soya and not Idan mun soya? What is muka?

Hausa has two main sets of subject pronouns in the past/completive:

Independent series: na, ka, kin, ya, ta, mun, kun, sun
Relative / focused series: na, ka, ki, ya, ta, muka, kuka, suka

After certain words (like idan, lokacin da, in, some question words, and in relative clauses), Hausa normally uses the relative / focused set.

muka is the 1st person plural relative/focused form.
mun is the 1st person plural independent form.

So:

Mun soya gyada. – We fried peanuts. (main independent clause)
Idan muka soya gyada… – When(ever) we fry peanuts… (clause introduced by idan, so it triggers muka).

You can sometimes hear Idan mun soya…, but the very common, “textbook” pattern with idan is to use the relative form: Idan muka….

What time/aspect does muka soya express? Why not muna soya?

muka soya uses the completive / perfective aspect with the relative pronoun (muka). It literally suggests a completed action: we (do) fry / we have fried. In this kind of conditional-habitual sentence, Hausa typically uses this completive form to talk about general truths or repeated events:
- Idan muka soya gyada… gidan yana cika…
  → When(ever) we fry peanuts… the house fills…
muna soya would be the progressive / continuous form:
- Muna soya gyada. – We are frying peanuts (right now).

If you said:

Idan muna soya gyada da dankali, gidan yana cika da ƙamshi mai daɗi,
it would sound more like “Whenever we are in the middle of frying peanuts and potatoes, the house is filling with a nice smell.”
It’s not wrong, but the version with muka soya is the more idiomatic pattern for a general “whenever X happens, Y happens” statement.

Are gyada and dankali singular or plural here? Why is there no plural marker?

In form, both gyada (peanut/groundnut) and dankali (potato) are singular nouns. But Hausa often uses the singular form of food nouns in a generic or mass sense, where English would say “peanuts” or “potatoes”:

Ina son gyada. – I like peanuts / peanut(s).
Sun sayo dankali. – They bought potatoes.

So in this sentence:

gyada da dankali is best translated as “peanuts and potatoes”, even though the Hausa words are singular forms.
If you really needed explicit plurals, you could use plural forms (e.g. gyàdòodì for peanuts), but in everyday speech the bare singular is very common for “some X” or “X in general,” especially with foods.

What is the role of da in gyada da dankali and in cika da ƙamshi? Is it the same da?

It’s the same word da, but it plays slightly different roles depending on position:

Between two nouns – “and”:
- gyada da dankali → peanuts and potatoes
  Here da is a coordinating conjunction meaning “and”.
After a verb like cika – “with”:
- yana cika da ƙamshi mai daɗi → it is filling with a pleasant smell
  Here da behaves more like a preposition meaning “with / in / by”, introduced by the verb cika (to fill, be full).

So it’s the same form da, but:

X da Y (two nouns) ≈ “X and Y”
Verb + da + NP (like cika da…) ≈ “fill with…, be full of…”

What does tare add after gyada da dankali? Could we leave it out or say tare da instead?

tare means “together” / “at the same time”.

In Idan muka soya gyada da dankali tare, we already have gyada da dankali (“peanuts and potatoes”), so tare is there to emphasize that they are fried together in the same pan / at the same time, not separately.

Without tare:
- Idan muka soya gyada da dankali, …
  → still understandable as “When we fry peanuts and potatoes, …”
With tare:
- adds the nuance “together” explicitly.

About tare vs tare da:

When you already have X da Y, it’s normal just to add tare after the whole phrase:
- muka soya gyada da dankali tare – we fry peanuts and potatoes together
tare da is often used when you directly say “together with (someone/something)”:
- Na je kasuwa tare da 'yar’uwata. – I went to the market together with my sister.

Using tare alone here is natural and idiomatic.

What is the difference between gida and gidan?

gida = house, home (basic form)
gidan = gida + -n, where -n is a linking/definite suffix.

gidan can mean:

“the house / the home” in a general definite sense:
- Gidan yana cika da ƙamshi. – The house fills with a nice smell.
Or “the house of …” when followed by another noun:
- gidan Audu – Audu’s house / the house of Audu

In your sentence, gidan is used alone, so it is best taken as “the house” (our house / the house in question). Hausa often prefers this -n/-r suffix where English would just use “the”.

Why do we see both gidan and yana? Isn’t gidan already the subject?

Yes, gidan is the logical subject, but Hausa often uses a topic + resumptive pronoun structure:

Gidan (topic: “as for the house”)
yana cika da ƙamshi… (comment: “it is filling with a pleasant smell”)

So yana is a 3rd person singular pronoun (“he/it”) that refers back to gidan. This pattern is very common and quite natural:

Audu, yana aiki a ofis. – Audu, he works in an office.
Littafin nan, yana da tsada. – This book, it is expensive.

You could in principle say Ya cika da ƙamshi if gidan had just been mentioned before, but putting gidan explicitly in front makes it the topic of the whole sentence, and yana ties the verb phrase back to it.

Why yana cika and not ya cika? What is the difference?

ya cika is simple completive: it (already) filled / it becomes full.
yana cika is progressive / continuous: it is filling / it is in the process of being filled (or regularly gets filled).

In the sentence:

gidan yana cika da ƙamshi mai daɗi

this suggests either:

a process happening at that moment – “the house is (now) filling with a pleasant smell”, or
in a habitual conditional like here, a typical result – “the house (always) gets filled with a pleasant smell whenever we do that”.

The form yana + verb is built from:

ya (3rd sg masc pronoun) + na (progressive marker) → written together as yana before a verb: yana cika, yana tafiya, etc.

So yana cika matches well with the habitual “whenever we fry X, the house fills up with a nice smell.”

Why does gidan take yana (masculine) – is a house masculine in Hausa?

In Hausa, all inanimate nouns are grammatically masculine by default. So even though a house has no natural gender, grammatically it is treated as masculine, and you use masculine pronouns with it:

gida → yana (it is), ya cika (it filled), ya yi tsada (it got expensive).

So:

gidan yana cika… – literally “the house, he/it is filling…”, but in English we just say “it is filling…”.

This is a general rule: tables, books, cars, cities, etc. are all normally masculine for agreement purposes.

How is ƙamshi mai daɗi structured? What does mai do here?

Breakdown:

ƙamshi – smell, aroma, scent
daɗi – pleasure, pleasantness, sweetness, enjoyment
mai – literally owner / possessor of, but very often used to form adjectival phrases: “having X, characterized by X”.

So:

ƙamshi mai daɗi ≈ smell that has pleasantness → “pleasant smell / nice-smelling aroma”.

This noun + mai + noun structure is very common in Hausa as an equivalent of “adjective”:

mutum mai kudi – a person with money → a rich person
ruwa mai sanyi – water with coolness → cool water
mota mai sauri – car with speed → a fast car

Here mai daɗi behaves like an adjective modifying ƙamshi.

Could we just say ƙamshi daɗi instead of ƙamshi mai daɗi? Where do adjectives usually go?

In Hausa, true adjectives normally come after the noun:

kofi babba – big cup
ruwa sanyi – cold water

But daɗi is basically a noun (“pleasantness, sweetness, enjoyment”), not a basic adjective. To use it adjectivally, Hausa usually needs mai:

abinci mai daɗi – tasty food
ƙamshi mai daɗi – pleasant smell

ƙamshi daɗi by itself would sound odd or incomplete; you would normally expect either:

ƙamshi mai daɗi – pleasant smell, or
a different adjective like ƙamshi mai kyau (good / nice smell).

So:

Word order: Noun + (Adjective / “mai + noun” phrase)
But with daɗi, you generally need mai: mai daɗi.

What is the difference between soya, dafa, and gasa for cooking? Why soya here?

These are three common cooking verbs in Hausa:

soya – to fry (in oil/fat)
- soya dankali – fry potatoes
dafa – to boil / cook in water/sauce
- da fa shinkafa – cook rice (in water)
gasa – to roast / grill / bake (dry heat)
- gasa nama – grill/roast meat

In the sentence, soya is used because gyada (peanuts) and dankali (potatoes) are typically fried in oil in this context. So Idan muka soya gyada da dankali tare… specifically describes frying them, not boiling or roasting.

How should I pronounce ƙamshi and daɗi? What is the difference between k / ƙ and d / ɗ?

Hausa distinguishes between:

k and ƙ
d and ɗ

Rough guide (for an English speaker):

k – a regular k sound as in “kite”.
ƙ – an ejective / glottalized k. You sort of “pop” it out with a tighter throat; there’s a small catch or burst of air.
- ƙamshi – starts with this stronger ƙ sound.
d – a regular d sound as in “dog”.
ɗ – an implosive d: you slightly pull air in while voicing the d. To learners it often feels like a “heavy” or “swallowed” d.
- daɗi – both consonants are this ɗ sound (often written as ɗaɗi in more phonetic spellings).

The difference is meaningful in Hausa (it can change words), so it’s worth practicing, even if at first you approximate them with a very strong /k/ and a heavy /d/ until you get used to the exact articulation.