Learn Hardcore Hausa: Abinci mai mai ba shi da kyau ga lafiya.

abinci – food
mai (first mai) – that has / that is characterized by (a linker that forms adjectives: “thing that has X”)
mai (second mai) – oil, fat, grease
ba – negative marker “not”
shi – “he/it” (3rd person singular masculine pronoun, here: it, referring to abinci)
da – with / having
kyau – goodness, beauty, quality → “good”
ga – to / for / towards
lafiya – health, wellbeing

Literally something like: “Food that has oil, it is not with goodness for health.” → “Oily food is not good for (your) health.”

Why do we have mai mai after abinci? How is that describing the food?

In Hausa, descriptive words normally come after the noun they modify, not before it.

abinci – food
mai mai – literally “that has oil/fat”

So abinci mai mai = “food that has oil/fat” → “oily food / fatty food.”

The structure is:

noun + mai + (thing it has)

Examples:

mota mai sauri – a car that has speed → a fast car
abinci mai gishiri – food that has salt → salty food
abinci mai mai – food that has fat/oil → oily/fatty food

Are the two mai in abinci mai mai actually the same word?

They are the same form mai, but they play two different roles here:

First mai (before the second word) is a grammatical word meaning “that has / that has a lot of.” It’s used to turn a following noun into something like an adjective:
- abinci mai zafi – food that has heat → hot food
Second mai (after the first mai) is the noun meaning “oil / fat.”

So abinci mai mai is literally:

“food [that has] oil/fat”

Spoken, the two mai are usually pronounced the same; context tells you which function each one has.

What is the function of shi in ba shi da kyau? Why is it needed?

Shi is a pronoun referring back to abinci (“it” = the food).

In this negative pattern, Hausa normally uses:

ba + pronoun + da + X

to mean “not have X / not be X / not be with X.”

So:

ba shi da kyau – “it is not with goodness” → “it is not good”
ba ta da lafiya – “she is not with health” → “she is not healthy”
ba ni da kuɗi – “I am not with money” → “I don’t have money”

The pronoun (shi, ta, ni, etc.) is not optional in this pattern; you can’t just say ba da kyau for “it is not good.” You must say ba shi da kyau here.

How does the negative structure ba shi da kyau work? What would the positive version look like?

The pattern is built on a “have/with” idea.

A common positive pattern is:

Yana da kyau. – “He/it has goodness.” → “He/it is good.”

Negative:

Ba shi da kyau. – “He/it is not with goodness.” → “He/it is not good.”

So with our sentence:

Positive (theoretical): Abinci mai mai yana da kyau ga lafiya.
“Oily food is good for health.”
Negative: Abinci mai mai ba shi da kyau ga lafiya.
“Oily food is not good for health.”

Key points:

yana da X → “he/it is X / has X”
ba shi da X → “he/it is not X / does not have X”

The ba … da frame wraps around the pronoun (shi here) to make the negative.

Why is there no separate word for “is” in this sentence?

Hausa often does not use a separate verb “to be” like English is / am / are.

Instead, it uses:

verbs like yana da (“has / is with”) + a noun (like kyau, “goodness”), or
just a noun or adjective directly after the subject in some contexts.

Here, ba shi da kyau literally means “it is not with goodness,” and that entire structure functions as “is not good.” There is no extra word corresponding directly to English “is.” The “is-ness” is built into the da / ba … da structure.

What does ga in ga lafiya mean? Why not just say lafiya alone?

Ga is a preposition that often means “to / towards / for”.

In ga lafiya, it is best understood as “for (the) health”:

ba shi da kyau ga lafiya – “it is not good for health”

If you say only ba shi da kyau lafiya, it will sound incomplete or wrong. Hausa normally needs a preposition like ga (or sometimes don) to express this kind of “good for X / bad for X.”

Compare:

motsi yana da kyau ga jiki – exercise is good for the body
siga ba ta da kyau ga hakora – sugar is not good for the teeth

Why is the pronoun shi (masculine “he/it”) used with abinci? Do nouns in Hausa have gender?

Yes. Hausa has grammatical gender: masculine and feminine.

shi = he/it (masculine)
ita = she/it (feminine)

Most nouns in Hausa are classified as either masculine or feminine. A common rule of thumb (with exceptions):

Many nouns ending in ‑a are feminine:
- mota (car), ƙafa (leg), jakar (bag [often jakka/jaka]) → usually feminine → ita
Many others are masculine:
- abinci (food), allo (board), likita (doctor – masculine here), etc. → shi

So:

abinci is grammatically masculine, so the pronoun that must agree with it is shi:
- Abinci mai mai ba shi da kyau… – “Oily food, it is not good…”

How would the sentence change if the subject were feminine, for example magani (medicine), assuming it’s treated as feminine?

If the noun is feminine, you change shi to ta / ita to match the gender.

Using magani (“medicine”), which is often treated as masculine in practice, but let’s imagine a clearly feminine noun, say ƙwaya (a pill/tablet, feminine) with the same idea:

Ƙwaya mai mai ba ta da kyau ga lafiya.
- ƙwaya – pill/tablet (feminine here)
- ba ta da kyau – “it (she) is not good”

Pattern:

Masculine: ba shi da kyau
Feminine: ba ta da kyau

So the pronoun in the ba … da structure always matches the gender of the noun you’re talking about.

Is the word order always noun + description like in abinci mai mai? Could you put the “adjective” before the noun like in English?

In Hausa, the normal word order for noun + description is:

Noun + (adjective / descriptive phrase)

So:

abinci mai mai – oily food
mota ja – red car
gida babba – big house
abinci mai zafi – hot food

You do not say:

mai mai abinci for “oily food” (that would sound like “the owner of food” or just be wrong here)
ja mota for “red car” (that would be ungrammatical)

So the Hausa pattern is:

Noun first, then what describes it.

Are there other natural ways to say “Oily food is not good for health” in Hausa?

Yes, several variants are possible while keeping the same meaning. For example:

Cin abinci mai mai ba shi da kyau ga lafiya.
- Literally: “Eating oily food is not good for health.”
- Here cin = eating (verbal noun).
Abinci mai kitse ba shi da kyau ga lafiya.
- kitse – fat (animal fat)
- “Fatty food is not good for health.”
Abinci mai mai ba ya da kyau ga lafiya.
- ba ya da is another negative form (“is not with / does not have”) used with ya instead of shi, often pronounced/written bai da in fast speech:
- Abinci mai mai bai da kyau ga lafiya.

All of these are acceptable; your original Abinci mai mai ba shi da kyau ga lafiya is clear and natural.