Learn Hardcore Hausa: Likita ya ce ’yar uwata za ta samu sauƙi bayan ta sha magani. - The doctor said my sister will get better after she takes the medicine.

Likita (subject) + ya ce (reporting verb) + [clause]
[clause] = ’yar uwata za ta samu sauƙi bayan ta sha magani
my sister will get better after she takes medicine

What exactly does Likita mean? Is it only “doctor”?

Likita means doctor in the modern (Western) medical sense:

Likita – medical doctor (physician, GP, hospital doctor, etc.)

It’s not used for traditional healers; those are more often called boka or mai magani gargajiya (traditional healer).

So:

Likita = a trained medical doctor, as in the sentence.

Why do we have ya before ce? What does ya ce mean exactly?

In ya ce, the word ya is the 3rd person masculine singular subject pronoun (“he”), and ce is the verb “to say”.

ya ce = he said

In Hausa, you normally must have a subject pronoun before the verb, even if you already mentioned the subject noun (Likita):

Likita ya ce … – The doctor, he said …
(That’s how Hausa normally structures it.)

About tense/aspect:

Here ya ce is in the perfective aspect, so it usually corresponds to “said / has said” rather than “is saying”.
Depending on context, it can be understood as:
- The doctor said … (past report), or
- The doctor has said / has told us that … (recent past).

But it does not mean “The doctor says” (present habitual); for that you’d say something like Likita yana cewa …

Can you also say Likita ya ce cewa ’yar uwata …? What is cewa and is it needed?

cewa is a complementizer, similar to English “that” in reported speech:

Likita ya ce cewa ’yar uwata za ta samu sauƙi …
≈ The doctor said *that my sister will get better…*

In everyday speech:

Hausa very often drops cewa after ce.
So Likita ya ce ’yar uwata za ta … is absolutely natural and common.

Using cewa here is:

Grammatically fine.
Slightly more explicit/formal or careful, but not necessary.

What does ’yar uwata literally mean, and how does it end up meaning “my sister”?

Break it down:

’yar – “daughter / female child” (feminine of ɗa “child, son”)
uwa – “mother”
uwata – “my mother” (uwa
- possessive suffix -ta = “my” with feminine nouns)

Combine:

’yar uwata – literally “daughter of my mother”

In normal usage, ’yar uwa means female sibling (sister), and with possession:

’yar uwata – my sister
ɗan uwata – my (male) sibling / my brother

So it’s a very natural way in Hausa to say “my sister”: the daughter of my mother.

Why is there an apostrophe in ’yar? How do you pronounce it?

The apostrophe in ’yar marks a glottal stop (a tiny catch in the throat), similar to the break in the middle of English uh‑oh.

Pronunciation:

Start with a short, closed throat stop (as if you began with a vowel after a slight pause), then say yar.
It’s not exactly like English “yar” without the apostrophe; there’s that little throat closure first.

Spelling note:

’ya / ’yar / ’ya’ya are usually written with this apostrophe in standard Hausa spelling:
- ’ya – child (feminine) / daughter
- ’yar – feminine form in compounds (as here: ’yar uwa)
- ’ya’ya – children (plural)

The word ta appears three times (in uwata, za ta, ta sha). Are they all the same word, and what do they mean?

They look the same, but they play different roles.

uwata
- Here -ta is a possessive suffix meaning “my” for feminine nouns.
- uwa (mother) + -ta → uwata = my mother
- So ’yar uwata = daughter of my mother (my sister).
za ta samu sauƙi
- Here ta is the 3rd person feminine subject pronoun: “she”.
- za = future marker, ta = she, samu = get/obtain.
- za ta samu sauƙi = she will get better.
bayan ta sha magani
- Again ta is “she” as subject of sha (to drink/take).
- ta sha magani = she took / has taken medicine.

So:

-ta attached to uwa = “my” (possessive suffix).
Standalone ta before verbs = “she” (subject pronoun).

What does za do in za ta samu sauƙi? How is the future formed?

za is the future marker in Hausa.

Pattern:

za + subject pronoun + verb (base form)

Examples:

za ni je – I will go
za ka zo – you (m.) will come
za ta samu sauƙi – she will get better
za su dawo – they will return

In your sentence:

za ta samu sauƙi = she will get relief / will get better.

What does the phrase samu sauƙi mean? Is it idiomatic?

Yes, samu sauƙi is a very common idiomatic expression.

samu – to get, obtain, receive
sauƙi – relief, ease, lessening (of pain, difficulty, etc.)

Together:

samu sauƙi = to get better / to feel some relief / to improve (health-wise)

Nuance:

Often implies partial or gradual improvement, not necessarily 100% cured.
For “completely heal / recover fully,” Hausa also uses warke:
- za ta warke – she will (fully) recover.

But in everyday medical talk, samu sauƙi is very natural when talking about a patient starting to improve.

Why does Hausa say bayan ta sha magani (“after she drank medicine”) when English says “after she takes the medicine” (future)? Is that tense difference normal?

Yes, it’s normal and very common.

bayan – “after”
ta sha magani – literally “she drank / has drunk medicine” (perfective aspect)

In Hausa, when you talk about a future event that will only happen after another event, the earlier event is often put in the perfective, as if it is already completed at that future time.

So:

za ta samu sauƙi bayan ta sha magani
literally: she will get better after she has drunk/taken medicine
natural English: she will get better *after she takes the medicine.*

This “perfective for the earlier future action” is a regular pattern in Hausa temporal clauses.

Why does Hausa say sha magani (“drink medicine”)? Is sha always “to drink”?

sha basically means “to drink”, but it’s used more broadly than English “drink”:

Common uses of sha:

sha ruwa – to drink water
sha shayi – to drink tea
sha taba – to smoke tobacco
sha giya – to drink alcohol
sha magani – to take medicine (usually liquid or in general)

So:

sha magani is the idiomatic, everyday way of saying “take medicine” in Hausa, even if the medicine isn’t strictly liquid (e.g., pills). English needs “take”, but Hausa keeps sha.

In your sentence:

bayan ta sha magani = after she takes/has taken the medicine (literally: after she drinks medicine).