Learn Hardcore Hausa: Kwano biyu suna a kan tebur, ɗaya yana da miya mai mai, ɗaya kuma yana da shinkafa kawai. - Two bowls are on the table, one has oily soup, and the other has only rice.

kwano – bowl
biyu – two
suna – they are (su = they, na = continuous marker; together: they are/they exist)
a – at / in / on (general location preposition)
kan – top / surface of
tebur – table

So literally it is something like:

Kwano biyu suna a kan tebur
Two bowls they-are at (the) top (of the) table.

In natural English: “Two bowls are on the table.”
Hausa does not need a dummy “there” like English “There are two bowls on the table.”

Why is it kwano biyu instead of kwanuka biyu or biyu kwano?

Two points:

Position of the number
In Hausa, cardinal numbers normally come after the noun:
- kwano biyu – two bowls
- mota uku – three cars
- littafi biyar – five books
So biyu kwano is wrong in standard Hausa.
Singular vs. plural with numbers
Very often, especially in careful/standard language, the noun stays in the singular after a number:
- kwano biyu (not necessarily kwanuka biyu) – two bowls
- mota uku – three cars (rather than motoci uku)
You may hear plural forms with numbers in everyday speech, but kwano biyu is perfectly normal and idiomatic, and that is why it appears in this sentence.

What exactly does suna mean here? Is it like “are” or “they are”?

Suna is a combination of:

su – they
na – continuous/progressive aspect marker (“be doing / be in a state”)

So suna literally means “they are (in a certain state / at a location / doing something)”.

In this sentence:

Kwano biyu suna a kan tebur
= The two bowls are on the table.

Some parallel forms:

Ina a gida. – I am at home. (ni + na → ina)
Kana aiki. – You (masc.) are working.
Yana nan. – He/it is here.

So you can think of suna as “they are” plus the idea of a current state or location.

Could I also say "suna kan tebur" or "akan tebur"? What is the difference between a kan, kan, and akan?

All three are very close in meaning, and all are used for “on (top of) the table”:

suna a kan tebur – they are on the table
suna kan tebur – they are on the table
suna akan tebur – they are on the table

What’s going on?

a is the general locative preposition: in/at/on.
kan is literally “top, surface, head”.
a kan = “at the top (of)” → “on (top of)”.
In fast speech and in writing, a kan often becomes akan, or the a is dropped and you just get kan.

In this sentence, suna a kan tebur is completely standard.
You will also often hear suna kan tebur; there is no real difference in meaning here.

In "ɗaya yana da miya mai mai", what does ɗaya refer to? Why is there no word for “bowl” again?

Earlier, we already mentioned two bowls:

Kwano biyu suna a kan tebur – Two bowls are on the table.

After that, Hausa can use ɗaya by itself to mean “one of them / one (of the bowls)” without repeating kwano:

ɗaya yana da miya mai mai
= one (of the bowls) has oily soup

So here:

ɗaya – one (of those bowls)
yana da… – it has…

If you want to make it VERY explicit, you can say:

Ɗaya daga cikin kwanukan yana da miya mai mai.
“One of the bowls has oily soup.”

But in normal speech, simply ɗaya is enough when the context is clear.

Why do we use yana da to say “has”? Is da the same word as “with/and”?

Yes, it’s the same word da, but used in a special construction.

Possession (“to have”)
To say that someone or something has something, Hausa typically uses a form of na (continuous) + da:
- Ina da kudi. – I have money.
- Kana da mota. – You (masc.) have a car.
- Yana da miya. – He/it has soup.
- Suna da yara. – They have children.
So in your sentence:
- ɗaya yana da miya mai mai
  = one (bowl) has oily soup.
“With / and” meaning
The same da can also mean “with / and”:
- miyar doya da wake – yam soup with beans
- na je da shi – I went with him.
- ruwa da ƙanƙara – water and ice

So da has two main uses:

as a general “and/with” word; and
together with na/na‑forms to give the idea “to have” (ina da, yana da, suna da, etc.).

Context tells you which meaning is intended.

In "miya mai mai", why is the word mai repeated? Are the two mai the same word?

They are written the same in standard spelling, but they are two different words here:

The first mai is an adjective-forming word meaning roughly “having / with”.
It comes before a noun to describe something by what it has:
- mutum mai kudi – a person with money / a rich person
- riga mai tsada – a dress that is expensive
- miya mai nama – soup with meat
The second mai is the noun meaning “oil” (cooking oil, fat).

So:

miya mai mai
literally: soup having oil → oily soup / soup with oil.

In speech, they are pronounced with different tones, but in writing they both appear as mai.

Could I just say "miya mai mai" for “oily soup”? Are there other natural ways to say this in Hausa?

Yes, miya mai mai on its own is already a natural, clear way to say “oily soup”.

Other possibilities, depending on what you want to emphasize, include:

miya mai mai da yawa – soup with a lot of oil
miyan mai – literally “soup of oil / oil soup” (context decides how natural this sounds)
miya mai kitse – soup that has fat (using kitse “fat/grease”)

But for the sentence you gave, miya mai mai is perfectly idiomatic and probably the most straightforward phrase.

What does kuma do in "ɗaya kuma yana da shinkafa kawai"?

Kuma is a very common connector. Here it has a sense of “and (on the other hand) / whereas / as for …”.

The pattern is:

ɗaya yana da miya mai mai – one has oily soup,
ɗaya kuma yana da shinkafa kawai – and the other (by contrast) has only rice.

So ɗaya kuma is like saying:

“and the other one”
“while the other one”
“as for the other one”

Kuma is often used to show addition or contrast between two clauses:

Na tafi kasuwa, shi kuma ya zauna gida.
I went to the market, but he stayed at home.
Na ci shinkafa, kuma na sha ruwa.
I ate rice, and I also drank water.

What does kawai mean exactly, and where does it normally go in the sentence?

Kawai means “only / just / merely / nothing else”.

In the sentence:

ɗaya kuma yana da shinkafa kawai
= “and the other has only rice (nothing else).”

Placement:

kawai usually comes after the word or phrase it limits:
- shinkafa kawai – only rice
- ni kawai – only me / just me
- wannan kawai nake so. – This is the only thing I want.
- a nan kawai – only here / just here

If kawai is at the very end, it usually limits the last phrase before it, as in your sentence.
You wouldn’t normally put kawai before the noun in Hausa (so kawai shinkafa is not idiomatic).

Why is it yana da (masculine) for a bowl? Can I ever use tana da with inanimate things?

Hausa has gendered 3rd‑person singular forms:

yana – he is / it is (masc.)
tana – she is / it is (fem.)

For people, gender is usually clear:

Yaro yana gudu. – The boy is running.
Yarinya tana gudu. – The girl is running.

For inanimate things (like bowls, tables, books), everyday usage is more flexible. Often:

The default is to treat them as masculine → yana.
But many speakers also use tana for certain nouns, especially ones that feel grammatically “feminine” in their dialect (e.g. mota tana tafiya – the car is moving).

In your sentence:

ɗaya yana da miya mai mai – one (bowl) has oily soup.

Using yana with kwano is completely natural.
Some speakers might occasionally say tana for certain inanimate nouns, but for a learner it’s safest to follow what you see here: kwano… yana… not tana.