Breakdown of Likita ya ce hakori mai tsabta yana kare lafiya.
ne
to be
lafiya
the health
ce
to say
likita
the doctor
Questions & Answers about Likita ya ce hakori mai tsabta yana kare lafiya.
In the sentence Likita ya ce hakori mai tsabta yana kare lafiya., what does each Hausa word correspond to in English?
Word by word:
- Likita – doctor
- ya – he / it (3rd person singular subject pronoun, masculine/default)
- ce – said
- hakori – tooth
- mai – having / that has / that possesses
- tsabta – cleanliness → in this structure mai tsabta = clean
- yana – he/it is (progressive or habitual marker: ya
- na)
- kare – protect, defend
- lafiya – health, well‑being
Phrase by phrase:
- Likita ya ce … – The doctor said (that) …
- hakori mai tsabta – a tooth that is clean / a clean tooth
- yana kare lafiya – (it) protects health / (it) is protecting health
Why do we have ya after Likita? In English we don’t say “The doctor he said …”.
In Hausa, a subject pronoun like ya is normally required before the verb, even if a full noun (like Likita) is already mentioned.
So:
- Likita ya ce … literally: Doctor he said …, but it simply means The doctor said ….
- The noun Likita is the topic, and ya is the grammatical subject pronoun attached to the verb ce.
You cannot normally drop and say ; it would be ungrammatical.