Spanish to Hausa: tener expresses age and sensations as well as possession
The object of tener determines what the sentence means
Spanish tener can express possession, but the RAE also lists uses for age, duration and sensations such as hunger, fear or cold. A Hausa translation should therefore not begin by assigning every tener phrase an ordinary ownership construction. Having a bag, being hungry and being twelve years old concern different relationships even when the Spanish source uses the same verb family.
The UCLA Hausa grammar illustrates an age question with Shekarunsa nawa? and an answer Shekarunsa sha biyu. The construction asks how many years the person has and supplies twelve. It does not describe twelve objects that the person owns or twelve years of a task already completed. The noun years and its relationship to the person establish the age reading.
An age and a duration need different reference points
Spanish tener with a time noun can describe a person’s age or the duration of something, according to the dictionary. The subject and surrounding description determine which is intended. A report about how old a child is should not become a report that the child has spent that many years in a particular place. Both contain a time quantity, but only the latter needs a separate activity or location.
When translating a Spanish family introduction, preserve whose age is stated. A nearby parent or sibling may be the grammatical subject of another clause, but that does not make the age theirs. The Hausa possessive quantity expression must remain attached to the intended person. A correct numeral cannot compensate for assigning the years to the wrong family member.
Sensations use another target pattern
UCLA explains physical and emotional sensations with ji, meaning feel, and illustrates Muna jin yunwa for a group being hungry. This offers a useful contrast with Spanish tener hambre. The target does not need an ordinary have verb to preserve the sensation, and the noun hunger is not a possession that can be handed to someone.
A Spanish travel message can mention both being hungry and having food. These are related circumstances but separate claims. A translation that turns the first into ownership could imply that food is available; one that turns the second into hunger could erase the provisions. Interpret each tener phrase through its complement instead of giving the entire message one uniform target pattern.
Do not insert a copula merely because the result describes a state
In the possessive quantity patterns it discusses, UCLA notes the absence of ne or ce when the subject contains a possessive. This is a construction-specific observation, not a rule that Hausa never uses those elements. A target age expression should not be expanded simply to resemble a Spanish full sentence with an overt finite verb.
The Spanish source still supplies person, number and time information which the Hausa expression must retain through its own construction. A current age, an earlier age and a future birthday are not interchangeable, just as one hungry traveller differs from a hungry group. For this direction, identify the state or relationship first, preserve who it concerns and then express the quantity or sensation in the target pattern appropriate to it.
Language references