Learn Hardcore Hausa: Ya kamata mu kula da wuta, kar mu ɓata ta. - We should take care of electricity; let us not waste it.

In your sentence, “Ya kamata mu kula da wuta” ≈ “We should take care with the fire” or “We ought to be careful with the fire.”
Grammatically, ya here is not really felt as “he”; ya kamata functions almost like one fixed phrase meaning “it is proper / it is advisable.”

You normally use it like this:

Ya kamata mu tafi. – We should go.
Ya kamata ka yi hankali. – You should be careful.

Compared to similar expressions:

dole ne mu kula da wuta – we must / have to be careful with the fire (stronger obligation)
ya dace mu kula da wuta – it is fitting / appropriate that we be careful with the fire (close in strength, a bit more formal/literary)

So ya kamata expresses a recommendation or mild obligation, not a strict “must.”

Why is it “mu kula” and not “muna kula” after ya kamata?

The mu in “mu kula” is the 1st person plural subject pronoun “we,” and kula is in a subjunctive / bare verb form, not the progressive.

mu kula – “(that) we take care / that we be careful”
muna kula – “we are taking care / we are being careful” (progressive, ongoing action)

After ya kamata, Hausa normally uses the bare/subjunctive verb form:

Ya kamata mu tafi. – We should go. (not muna tafiya here)
Ya kamata su ji. – They should hear.

If you said:

Ya kamata muna kula da wuta,

it would sound off or ungrammatical to most speakers, because the structure after ya kamata wants mu + bare verb (subjunctive-like), not the progressive muna + -a / -wa form.

What does “kula da” mean exactly? Why do we need “da”?

In Hausa, kula da is a fixed verb–preposition combination. You usually learn and use it as a unit:

kula da = take care of, look after, pay attention to, be careful with

The da is not optional; it’s part of the phrase:

kula da yara – take care of children / look after children
kula da marasa lafiya – look after the sick
kula da kudi – be careful with money
kula da wuta – be careful with the fire

If you say just kula wuta without da, it sounds wrong to a native speaker in this meaning. So you should remember the whole chunk kula da X as the normal way to say “take care of / be careful with X.”

Does “wuta” just mean fire, or can it mean other things?

Wuta primarily means “fire”, and that’s the meaning in your sentence. But it has some extended meanings in Hausa:

electricity / power:
- Babu wuta. – There is no electricity.
heat / flame in a general sense
in religious or metaphorical contexts, wuta can refer to the fire of Hell or punishment.

In “kula da wuta”, the most natural reading is “be careful with the fire” (e.g., a campfire, stove, etc.), unless the context clearly points to electricity.

What does “kar” mean, and how is it different from other negatives like “ba”?

Kar is the negative word used for prohibitions and negative wishes, roughly “don’t” or “lest (we) …”.

Kar mu ɓata ta. – Let’s not spoil it / We mustn’t spoil it / so that we don’t spoil it.
Kar ka tafi. – Don’t go.
Kar ku manta. – Don’t you (pl.) forget.

This is different from ba, which makes ordinary negative statements:

Ba mu ɓata ta ba. – We did not spoil it.
Ba ya son wuta. – He doesn’t like fire.

So:

kar (+ subject pronoun + verb) = don’t (do X), or so that (someone) won’t (do X)
ba … ba = “not” in normal factual sentences.

In your sentence, “kar mu ɓata ta” is a negative purpose clause: …so that we don’t spoil it / …lest we spoil it.

Is “kar” the same as “kada” in Hausa?

Yes, kar and kada serve the same grammatical function: they both introduce negative commands / negative wishes / negative purpose.

Kar mu ɓata ta.
Kada mu ɓata ta.

Both mean: “Let’s not spoil it” / “so that we don’t spoil it.”

Some notes:

kada is often considered more standard / literary,
kar is very common in everyday speech and in many dialects.

The structure is the same:

Kar ka yi haka. / Kada ka yi haka. – Don’t do that.
Kar su manta. / Kada su manta. – Let them not forget.

So if you know how to use kada, you can use kar in exactly the same way.

What exactly does “ɓata” mean in this sentence? Does it always mean “waste”?

The verb ɓata has a range of meanings around “spoil / ruin / damage / waste / mess up.”

Some common uses:

ɓata lokaci – waste time
ɓata rai – upset / anger someone (literally “spoil the mood”)
Ya ɓata abinci. – He spoiled the food.
Sun ɓata komai. – They ruined everything.

In “kar mu ɓata ta”, possible English interpretations are:

so that we don’t spoil it,
so that we don’t ruin it,
so that we don’t waste it (depending on context: maybe not letting the fire die, not letting fuel be wasted, etc.).

The exact English verb (“waste,” “spoil,” “ruin,” “mess it up”) depends on what the speaker has in mind, but the core idea is: do something bad to it so it no longer serves its purpose properly.

Why is the pronoun “ta” used after “ɓata”? What is it referring to?

In “kar mu ɓata ta”, the ta is a 3rd person singular feminine object pronoun, meaning “her / it (feminine)”.

It refers back to wuta in the previous clause:

wuta (fire) is grammatically feminine in Hausa,
so when you refer back to it with a pronoun, you use ta (feminine), not shi (masculine).

Compare:

Na kashe wuta. Na ɓata ta. – I put out the fire. I ruined it.
Na ga littafi. Na ɓata shi. – I saw a book. I lost / ruined it. (because littafi is masculine, we use shi)

So the structure in your sentence is:

kar (negative command marker)
mu (we)
ɓata (spoil/ruin)
ta (it = the fire, feminine)

How do I know that “wuta” is feminine and not masculine?

In Hausa, grammatical gender is lexical—you normally have to learn it word by word. There are some patterns, but many common nouns must simply be memorized with their gender.

Dictionaries usually mark this: wuta (f.)
Because wuta is feminine, related pronouns and agreement forms use the feminine forms:
- ta (she / it-fem.)
- wutar nan – this fire (using the feminine form of “this” in some dialects)

Other examples:

mace (f.) – woman → Na ganta. – I saw her.
mutum (m.) – person/man → Na gan shi. – I saw him.
wata mota (f.) – a car → Na sayi ta. – I bought it.

So in your sentence, using ta after wuta is simply following the fixed grammatical gender of the noun wuta.

Why is the order “kar mu ɓata ta” and not something like “kar ɓata ta mu”?

Hausa has a fairly fixed word order in this construction. The pattern with kar / kada is:

kar / kada + subject pronoun + verb + object

So:

Kar mu ɓata ta. – Let’s not spoil it.
Kar ka taɓa shi. – Don’t touch it.
Kada su manta shi. – Let them not forget it.

You cannot move the subject or object around freely, so:

✗ kar ɓata ta mu – ungrammatical / very unnatural
✓ kar mu ɓata ta – correct

Think of it as a block: kar/kada + (subject) + (verb) + (object). The subject mu must come immediately after kar, and the object pronoun ta normally follows the verb ɓata.

Could this sentence be translated as a purpose clause like “so that we don’t spoil it”? How does the comma work?

Yes. The second part “kar mu ɓata ta” is naturally understood as a negative purpose clause or negative result to be avoided:

“Ya kamata mu kula da wuta, kar mu ɓata ta.”
– We should be careful with the fire, so that we don’t spoil it / so that we don’t put it out / lest we ruin it.

The comma in Hausa orthography here simply separates two closely linked clauses:

Ya kamata mu kula da wuta – We should take care with the fire,
kar mu ɓata ta – (so that) we don’t spoil it.

You could also make the purpose relation more explicit with words like domin / don:

Ya kamata mu kula da wuta domin kar mu ɓata ta.
– We should take care with the fire so that we don’t spoil it.

But even without domin/don, kar mu ɓata ta right after the first clause is normally understood as giving the reason / purpose for being careful.