Learn Hardcore Hausa: Musa ya sha lemo mai sanyi amma bai ci burodi ba. - Musa drank cold soda but did not eat bread.

ya here is the 3rd person singular masculine perfective marker: Musa ya sha… = “Musa (he) drank…”.
You can’t normally say ✗ Musa sha lemo; the ya is required in standard Hausa.
So Musa names the person, and ya both agrees with him and shows that the action is completed (perfective).

What tense or aspect is expressed by ya sha? Does it mean “drank” or “has drunk”?

ya sha is the perfective aspect for 3rd person singular masculine.

It describes a completed action in the past.
In English we usually translate it as simple past: Musa drank…
Depending on context, it can sometimes correspond to English has drunk, but grammatically it’s just “completed action”, not specifically “present perfect”.

How does the negative bai ci burodi ba work? Why is it split like that?

Hausa perfective negation uses a two-part structure: a negative form before the verb and ba at the end of the clause.

For 3rd person masculine perfective:

Pattern: bai + VERB + … + ba
bai is actually ba + ya (“not + he”), fused into one word.
So:
bai ci burodi ba = “he did not eat bread.”
The final ba is obligatory; you can’t drop it in this structure.

Why isn’t Musa repeated in the second clause? Why not say Musa bai ci burodi ba?

You can repeat Musa:

Musa ya sha lemo mai sanyi amma Musa bai ci burodi ba.

But it’s more natural to omit it because the subject is clearly the same in both clauses:

Musa ya sha… amma bai ci burodi ba. = “Musa drank… but (he) didn’t eat bread.”

Hausa, like English, often drops repeated subjects when the reference is obvious from context.

What does lemo mean exactly? Is it just “lemonade”?

In modern Hausa, lemo is a general word for a soft drink / soda / fizzy drink, not only “lemonade”.

It can refer to bottled or canned sodas (like cola, orange soda, etc.).
In some contexts it can be used more broadly for “a sweet non-alcoholic drink”.

So lemo mai sanyi is best understood as “cold soft drink” rather than literally “cold lemonade”.

How does mai sanyi mean “cold”? What is mai doing here?

sanyi by itself is a noun meaning “cold / coldness”.
mai is a word that, among other uses, can mean “having / possessing” when it comes before another noun.

So:

mai sanyi = “having cold / possessing coldness” → “cold (one)”.
Used after a noun, it functions like an adjective phrase:
lemo mai sanyi = “a drink having coldness” → “a cold drink”.

This NOUN + mai + NOUN structure is very common in Hausa to express qualities.

Why is the describing phrase mai sanyi placed after lemo, not before it like in English?

In Hausa, descriptive elements that work like adjectives usually follow the noun they describe, not precede it. Examples:

burodi ja – “red bread”
motar nan mai tsada – “this expensive car”

So lemo mai sanyi literally has the order “drink cold” (drink + having-cold), which is the normal Hausa order, even though English says “cold drink”.

What is the basic meaning of ci? Is it only used with burodi (“bread”) or for eating anything?

ci is the general verb “to eat” in Hausa.

ci burodi – eat bread
ci nama – eat meat
ci taliya – eat pasta

So ci is not restricted to bread; it’s the standard verb for eating food of any kind. It also appears in some idioms with extended meanings (e.g. “suffer”, “experience”), but the core meaning is “eat”.

What does amma mean, and where does it go in the sentence?

amma is a common conjunction meaning “but / however”.

It normally comes at the beginning of the clause that expresses the contrast:

Example from the sentence:

Musa ya sha lemo mai sanyi – Musa drank a cold soft drink
amma bai ci burodi ba – but he did not eat bread

So the structure is: [first statement] amma [contrasting statement].

How would the sentence change if the subject were a woman instead of Musa?

For a feminine subject, the perfective marker and its negative form change:

Masculine: ya sha … amma bai ci burodi ba.
Feminine: ta sha … amma ba ta ci burodi ba.

Example with Maryam:

Maryam ta sha lemo mai sanyi amma ba ta ci burodi ba.
= Maryam drank a cold soft drink but did not eat bread.

How would it look in the plural, like “They drank a cold soft drink but did not eat bread”?

For 3rd person plural, you use suka in the positive perfective and ba su … ba in the negative:

Suna (they) implied:
- Suka sha lemo mai sanyi amma ba su ci burodi ba.
  = They drank a cold soft drink but did not eat bread.

So the pattern is:

Positive: suka VERB
Negative: ba su VERB ba

Could the order of the ideas be reversed, like “Musa didn’t eat bread but drank a cold soft drink”? How would you say that?

Yes. You’d keep the same grammatical patterns but swap the clauses:

Musa bai ci burodi ba amma ya sha lemo mai sanyi.
= Musa did not eat bread but drank a cold soft drink.

Notice:

Negative clause: bai ci burodi ba
Positive clause: ya sha lemo mai sanyi
Only their order around amma changes; the internal structure of each clause stays the same.