Wannan shi ne mataki na farko.

shi ne is the part that gives the sentence its this is / it is meaning.

A good way to think about it is:

• Wannan = this
• shi ne = the identifying part, roughly is
• mataki na farko = the first step

So Hausa is not literally copying English structure word for word. Instead, it uses its own very common identification pattern.

Not in the usual English sense of he.

In other sentences, shi can mean he, him, or sometimes it. But here it is part of the fixed identifying structure shi ne. So in this sentence, it is better to understand shi ne as a grammatical unit, not as a separate word meaning a male person.

It also matches the grammatical gender of mataki, which is treated as masculine in Hausa.

Here na is a linker. It connects mataki with the expression that means first.

So:

• mataki = step
• na farko = first

Together, mataki na farko means first step.

This pattern is very common in Hausa. The linker can change depending on the noun. Since mataki is masculine singular, na is used here.

Because first and one are not the same thing.

• one is a cardinal number
• first is an ordinal number

In Hausa, ɗaya means one, but na farko means first.

So you should not expect first step to use the same word as one step. This is similar to English, where one and first are also different words.

There is no separate Hausa word here that works exactly like English the.

Hausa usually shows definiteness through context, demonstratives, possessives, and other grammatical patterns rather than a direct article. In this sentence, wannan already points to a specific thing, so the meaning is definite even without a separate word for the.

Yes.

In this sentence, wannan stands alone and means this or this one. But it can also come directly before a noun:

• wannan mataki = this step

So wannan can function either:

• as a demonstrative pronoun on its own
• or as a demonstrative determiner before a noun

The agreement words would change.

Because mataki is masculine, the sentence uses:

• shi ne
• na farko

With a feminine singular noun, you would normally expect:

• ita ce
• ta farko

For example, with hanya meaning way or path, you could say:

Wannan ita ce hanya ta farko.

So one important thing to notice is that Hausa often shows grammatical gender in words like shi / ita and na / ta.

Only partly.

At the big-picture level, the sentence matches English fairly closely:

• this
• is
• the first step

But inside the sentence, Hausa builds things differently:

• it uses shi ne for identification
• it expresses first step as noun + linker + ordinal: mataki na farko

So the overall meaning lines up with English, but the internal grammar is very much Hausa.