Learn Hardcore Hausa: Babur yana da amfani idan hanya ba ta da kyau. - A motorbike is useful when the road is not good.

It is capitalized in the sentence simply because it is the first word of the sentence. In the middle of a sentence you’d usually see babur with a lowercase b.

What exactly does yana da amfani mean, word by word, and why does it translate as “is useful”?

Breakdown:

yana = “he/it is (in the state of) …” / “he/it has …”
- From ya (he/it) + na (progressive/continuous marker).
da = “with / has”
amfani = “use, benefit” (a noun)

So yana da amfani literally means “it has use / it has benefit”.

In English we say “is useful”, but in Hausa this idea is often expressed with “to have use” rather than “to be useful”. So:

babur yana da amfani ≈ “a motorcycle has use” → “a motorcycle is useful.”

Could I say babur yana da amfani sosai to mean “very useful”? Where do intensifiers go?

Yes, that is completely natural. Intensifiers usually come after the main phrase:

babur yana da amfani sosai = “the motorbike is very useful”
yana da amfani ƙwarai = also “very useful / extremely useful”

So the pattern is:
[subject] + yana da + [noun/adjective] + sosai/ƙwarai/da gaske…

Why is there a pronoun ta in idan hanya ba ta da kyau? Isn’t hanya already the subject?

Yes, hanya (“road, way”) is the subject, but in this kind of negative “be” sentence Hausa uses a resuming pronoun:

hanya ba ta da kyau
- hanya = the road
- ba = negative particle
- ta = “she/it” (3rd person feminine singular) referring back to hanya
- da = “with / has”
- kyau = “goodness” → kyau becomes kyau/kyau/kyau? No, the adjective here is kyau/kyau? Wait. Actually it’s kyau used in da kyau = well / good; but here it’s kyau/kyau? → In this sentence it appears as kyau/kyau, realized in context as kyau/kyau?*
- Correction: In this sentence it appears as kyau, realized in context as kyau (“good”).

The structure ba + pronoun + da + X is a standard way to say “does not have X / is not X”:

Littafi ba shi da tsada. = “The book is not expensive.”
Hanya ba ta da kyau. = “The road is not good.”

So the ta is required by this pattern and must agree with the gender and number of hanya (feminine singular).

So does that mean hanya is grammatically feminine? How do I know?

Yes, hanya is treated as feminine in Hausa. You can see this from:

The pronoun used with it: ta (she/it) rather than ya (he/it).
In the plural the pronoun changes to su (they).

This is largely something you learn word by word; many Hausa nouns have a fixed grammatical gender. Some common feminine nouns:

mota – car → mota ta tsaya. (“the car stopped.”)
hanya – road → hanya ta yi tsawo. (“the road is long.”)

How would the sentence change if I say “roads” (plural) instead of “road”?

Plural of hanya is hanyoyi. The pronoun also changes from ta (she/it) to su (they). So you get:

Babur yana da amfani idan hanyoyi ba su da kyau.
= “A motorbike is useful when the roads are not good.”

Breakdown of the new part:

hanyoyi = roads
ba su da = “they do not have / they are not” (negative pattern with plural pronoun su)
kyau = goodness → “good”

What does idan mean exactly? Is it “if” or “when”? Can I put it at the end like in English “the road is bad when …”?

idan means “if / when” (for conditions or general situations). In many cases it can be translated as either, depending on context:

idan ka zo, zan tafi. = “if you come / when you come, I’ll go.”

The usual word order is:
idan + clause A, clause B

So in the sentence:

idan hanya ba ta da kyau, (babur yana da amfani).

You don’t put idan at the end. You would not say something parallel to “hanya ba ta da kyau idan”; that’s ungrammatical.

What is the function of ba … da in ba ta da kyau? Is that always how you make a negative?

ba … da here forms a special negative pattern for “having / being X”:

yana da X = “he/it has X / is X”
ba shi da X = “he/it does not have X / is not X”

In our sentence:

yana da kyau → “is good”
ba ta da kyau → “is not good”

You don’t always use ba … da for every negative. Examples:

ya tafi = he went → bai tafi ba = he didn’t go
yaro yana gudu = the boy is running → yaro ba ya gudu = the boy is not running

So:

For possession / qualities, you typically see (pronoun) yana da X / ba (pronoun) da X.
For ordinary verbs, use patterns like bai … ba, ba ya …, etc.

Could I say hanya ba ta kyau instead of ba ta da kyau?

No, hanya ba ta kyau is not the standard way to say “the road is not good.” The natural options are:

hanya ba ta da kyau.
hanya ba ta da kyau sosai. (“the road is really not good / quite bad.”)
hanya ba ta da kyau kwata-kwata. (“the road is not good at all.”)

The da is part of the ba + pronoun + da + X structure; leaving it out sounds wrong in this use.

Why is it babur yana da amfani and not something like babur shi ne mai amfani?

You can say babur shi ne mai amfani, but it sounds more like:

“the one that is useful is the motorbike” (emphasizing which thing is useful, as if contrasting it with other things).

The most neutral, general statement “a motorbike is useful” is expressed with:

babur yana da amfani (literally “a motorbike has usefulness / benefit”).

So:

babur yana da amfani = simple description: “a motorbike is useful.”
babur shi ne mai amfani = more contrastive / focused: “the useful one is the motorbike.”