Learn Hardcore Hausa: Ruwa ya fi abinci amfani. - Water is more useful than food.

In Hausa, when a full noun is the subject, you almost always also add a short subject pronoun before the verb. This is called subject agreement or concord.

ruwa = water (noun, subject)
ya = he/it (3rd person masculine singular subject pronoun)
fi = to surpass, to be more than (verb)

So the structure is:

[Noun subject] + [subject pronoun] + [verb]
ruwa ya fi … = water it-surpasses …

You cannot say *Ruwa fi abinci amfani; without ya, the verb fi would have no subject marker, and the sentence is ungrammatical in standard Hausa.

But ya usually means “he”. Why is “he” used for ruwa (water)?

Yes, ya is the 3rd person masculine singular subject pronoun. In Hausa:

Humans can be masculine (ya) or feminine (ta).
Most non-human nouns (things, animals, abstract nouns) pattern as masculine for agreement, so they take ya/shi.

So:

ruwa ya fi abinci amfani
literally: water he/it surpasses food (in) usefulness.

Even though in English we say “it” for water, in Hausa you use the masculine agreement form for most inanimate nouns. It does mean water is “male” in any real-world sense; it’s just grammatical gender.