Learn Hardcore Hausa: Likita ya ce kar mu ci sukari da yawa domin lafiyar baki da hanci. - The doctor said we should not eat too much sugar for the health of the mouth and nose.

Likita ya ce kar mu ci sukari da yawa domin lafiyar baki da hanci.

The doctor said we should not eat too much sugar for the health of the mouth and nose.

Breakdown of Likita ya ce kar mu ci sukari da yawa domin lafiyar baki da hanci.

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Questions & Answers about Likita ya ce kar mu ci sukari da yawa domin lafiyar baki da hanci.

What is the role of kar in kar mu ci, and how is this different from other negatives in Hausa?

Kar is used to make a negative command / negative suggestion (what in English would be “don’t…” or “let’s not…”).

Structure:

kar + subject pronoun + bare verb
kar mu ci = “let’s not eat / we should not eat”

Examples:

Kar ka tafi. – “Don’t go.” (to one male)
Kar ki tafi. – “Don’t go.” (to one female)
Kar su yi haka. – “They should not do that.”

This is different from the more general sentence negative that uses ba … ba:

Ba mu ci sukari da yawa ba. – “We do not eat a lot of sugar.”

And different from the future negative:

Ba za mu ci sukari da yawa ba. – “We will not eat a lot of sugar.”

In this sentence, kar mu ci is specifically a prohibition / warning: “we should not eat.”

Why is it mu ci and not something like muna ci or muna cin sukari?

Mu ci here uses the subjunctive / bare verb form after kar, which is standard for negative commands or recommendations.

mu ci – “(that) we eat” (subjunctive-like; used with kar)
muna ci – “we are eating / we eat (habitually)” (progressive / habitual)

So:

Likita ya ce kar mu ci sukari da yawa.
“The doctor said we should not eat a lot of sugar.”

If you said:

Likita ya ce ba ma cin sukari da yawa ba.
you’d be reporting: “The doctor said we do not eat a lot of sugar,” which is a statement about habit, not a warning or advice.

So the combination kar + mu + [bare verb] is the reason you see mu ci, not muna ci.

Why is the verb ci used on its own here, instead of cin or some other form?

In Hausa, ci is the finite verb “to eat,” while cin is the verbal noun / gerund “eating.”

ci – used as the actual verb in clauses:
- Mu ci abinci. – “Let’s eat food.”
- Ina son in ci abinci. – “I want to eat food.”
cin – used like a noun:
- Cin sukari da yawa ba shi da kyau. – “Eating a lot of sugar is not good.”
- Ya yi cin abinci. – lit. “He did eating of food.”

In kar mu ci sukari, we need a verb after mu, so the correct form is the finite verb ci, not the verbal noun cin.

How does da yawa work in sukari da yawa? Why is it after the noun?

Da yawa literally means “with much/many,” and together it means “a lot (of)” / “much / many.”

In Hausa, it usually comes after the noun it quantifies:

sukari da yawa – “a lot of sugar”
kudi da yawa – “a lot of money”
mutane da yawa – “many people”

Compare:

sukari kaɗan – “a little sugar / not much sugar”
sukari da yawa – “a lot of sugar”

So the pattern is:

[noun] + da yawa = “a lot of [noun]”

You would not normally say *da yawa sukari in this context; that order is wrong in Hausa.

How is domin used here, and how is it different from don or saboda?

Domin is a preposition / conjunction meaning roughly “for, for the sake of, because of, in order to.”

In the sentence:

… domin lafiyar baki da hanci. – “for the health of the mouth and nose / for oral and nasal health.”

Common uses:

Na yi hakan domin kai. – “I did that for you / for your sake.”
Ya yi karatu domin ya samu aiki. – “He studied in order to get a job.”

Don is basically a shortened, colloquial form of domin:

Don lafiya ta. ≈ Domin lafiyarta. – “For her health.”

Saboda means “because (of)”, and is more focused on reason / cause:

Ba mu ci sukari da yawa saboda lafiyar baki da hanci.
– “We don’t eat a lot of sugar because of the health of the mouth and nose.”

Here, domin sounds natural as “for the sake of / to protect” their health.

What is lafiyar exactly, and why does it have an -r at the end?

The base noun is lafiya – “health, well-being, peace.”

When lafiya is possessed (or linked to another noun), it often takes a linking -r:

lafiya + -r + baki → lafiyar baki – “the health of the mouth”
lafiya + -r + hanci → understood in lafiyar baki da hanci – “the health of the mouth and nose”

This -r is a normal genitive linker for many feminine nouns ending in -a:

mota (car) → motar Malam – “Malam’s car”
gida (house) → gidanmu – “our house” (here it becomes -n because of different noun class)

So:

lafiya (health)
lafiyata – “my health”
lafiyar baki – “the health of the mouth”

In the sentence, lafiyar expresses “the health (of…)” rather than just “health” in general.

Why does it say baki da hanci and not something like bakunanmu da hancimmu (“our mouths and our noses”)?

Hausa often uses bare body-part nouns to mean “one’s X / our X / people’s X” when the subject is obvious or generic.

So:

Na ji ciwon kai. – literally “I felt head pain,” but understood as “I have a headache.”
Suna wanke hannu kafin su ci. – “They wash (their) hands before they eat.”

Similarly:

domin lafiyar baki da hanci
literally: “for the health of mouth and nose”
understood: “for the health of the mouth and nose (i.e. our / one’s mouth and nose).”

If you said:

domin lafiyar bakunanmu da hancimmu – “for the health of our mouths and our noses,”
it would be grammatically possible but much heavier and less natural in this kind of general advice. The bare nouns are the usual way to express this generic “one’s X.”

What tense or aspect is ya ce in, and what does it imply?

Ya ce is 3rd person masculine singular + perfective of the verb ce (“to say, to state”).

ya ce – “he said / he has said”
ta ce – “she said”
sun ce – “they said”

The perfective here simply reports a completed speech act in the past:

Likita ya ce… – “The doctor said…”

You could also say:

Likita yana cewa kar mu ci sukari da yawa. – “The doctor keeps saying / is (always) saying we shouldn’t eat a lot of sugar.”
Here yana cewa is progressive: an ongoing or repeated action.

In the original sentence, ya ce presents the doctor’s advice as a specific thing he said (once, or at some identifiable time), not a constant habit of saying.

Could this sentence be reported with ba … ba instead of kar? How would that change the feel?

Yes, you can report the doctor’s advice in a different structure, but the nuance changes.

Original:

Likita ya ce kar mu ci sukari da yawa. – “The doctor said we should not eat a lot of sugar.”
(negative command / recommendation)

Alternative with ba … ba:

Likita ya ce ba za mu ci sukari da yawa ba. – Literally: “The doctor said we will not eat a lot of sugar.”

Here, ba za mu ci … ba is a future negative, and it sounds more like:

He said (that) we are not going to eat a lot of sugar (a decision, promise, prediction).

Kar mu ci… is the doctor telling or advising you not to do it.
Ba za mu ci… ba is more like we declaring what we will (not) do.

So grammatically both are possible correct sentences, but they don’t mean exactly the same thing.

Why is it Likita ya ce, not Likita ta ce? What if the doctor is a woman?

In Hausa:

ya = “he”
ta = “she”

So strictly speaking:

Likita ya ce… – “The (male) doctor said…”
Likita ta ce… – “The (female) doctor said…”

If you know the doctor is female, the more accurate form is:

Likita ta ce kar mu ci sukari da yawa…

In practice:

When the gender of likita isn’t specified or isn’t important, speakers sometimes default to the masculine ya, especially in casual speech.
But in careful or explicit language, ta is used for a clearly female doctor.

So the sentence as given implies the doctor is male, unless context says otherwise.

Is there a difference between this indirect style “ya ce kar mu ci …” and directly quoting the doctor with “ya ce: ‘Kar ku ci …’”?

Yes. You’re contrasting indirect speech with direct speech:

Indirect speech (reported):
- Likita ya ce kar mu ci sukari da yawa.
  Literally: “The doctor said (that) we should not eat a lot of sugar.”
  The viewpoint is adjusted to “we,” the current speakers / listeners.
Direct speech (quoted):
- Likita ya ce: “Kar ku ci sukari da yawa.”
  – “The doctor said: ‘Don’t you (pl.) eat a lot of sugar.’”
Here:
- ku = “you (plural)” – the people he was speaking to.
- We are quoting his exact words.

So:

ya ce kar mu ci… → indirect, from our point of view (“we should not eat”).
ya ce: ‘Kar ku ci…’ → direct, from the doctor’s point of view addressing “you (plural).”

Both are correct; they just present the speech differently.