Lesson 4

Daily Activities

 Harkokin Yau da Kullum

 

                  

This lesson will introduce you to the following:

-         How to ask for and tell time

-         Typical daily activities in Niger and Nigeria

-         The verbs “to go,” “to study,” “to play,” “to work,” “to watch,” “to read,” “to eat,” and “to get up”

-         The past tense of the verbs.

 

Telling Time:

The Hausa speaking world is not an area known for punctuality. Time is generally a relaxed concept, and efficiency is usually given less importance than propriety and conversation. All the same, people tend to discuss time, and everyone wants to own a watch. Generally speaking, the 12-hour clock is used in Hausa. In Niger, the 24-hour clock is occasionally used, but this is usually only used when speaking French. It is fairly easy to get a grasp of telling the time of day, but to truly understand how to tell time in Hausa, one must understand how to speak about the Islamic prayer times. It is often the case that, rather than telling an exact time, one will refer to one of the five daily prayers, each of which has a time of day and a name in Hausa. The five daily prayers are listed below with their Hausa name.

 

Asuba - dawn

Azahar – about 2 p.m.

La’asar – about 4 p.m.

Magariba – dusk (about 6 p.m.)

Lisha – nightfall (about 7 p.m.)

 

As with English, there are words in Hausa for quarter till, half past, and so on.

Quarter to four = Ƙarfe huɗu saura kwata.

Quarter after four = Ƙarfe huɗu da kwata.

Half past three = Ƙarfe ukku da rabi.

Ten till five = Karfe biyar saura minti goma.

Is it three yet = Ukku ta yi?

Yes, it’s three = I, Ukku ta yi.

 

Text Box:   You will also note that, rather than using a.m. or p.m., Hausa has several ways to break up the day. Da safe is the best translation for a.m., and da yamma is perhaps the closest translation for p.m., but there are a few other words that are used. Da safe is used in the morning, da rana is often used from about noon until about 4 p.m., da marece is often used from about 4 p.m. until dinnertime, and da dare is often used from after dinnertime until about 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. In all of these forms, you will sometimes hear na used instead of da.   The meaning is essentially the same. Note also that in the following examples there are longer and shorter ways of saying the same thing, and that it is acceptable to leave off the word ƙarfe and/or the ne/ce stabilizer in many cases.