Likita ya ce hakori mai tsabta yana kare lafiya.

The doctor said that a clean tooth protects health.

Breakdown of Likita ya ce hakori mai tsabta yana kare lafiya.

• ne: to be
• lafiya: the health
• ce: to say
• likita: the doctor
• kare: to protect
• hakori: the tooth
• mai tsabta: clean

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 ya and say ✗ Likita ce hakori mai tsabta…; it would be ungrammatical.

If the doctor were female, you would say Likita ta ce … (ta = she).

How do you say “said” in Hausa? Is ce always used like this?

In this structure, ya ce means he said.

• ce is the verb to say in the simple past when used with a subject pronoun:
  
  • na ce – I said
  • ka ce – you (m.sg) said
  • ya ce – he/it said
  • ta ce – she/it said

Often it introduces reported speech or a clause, just like say or say that in English, e.g. Likita ya ce … = The doctor said (that) ….

There is also faɗa “to say, to tell”, but ce is especially common in short “X said (that) …” patterns.

Where is the word “that” in “The doctor said that a clean tooth protects health”? I don’t see anything like “that” in the Hausa sentence.

Hausa can use a word cewa for that (the complementizer), but it is very often omitted in everyday speech.

So both of these are possible:

• Likita ya ce hakori mai tsabta yana kare lafiya.
• Likita ya ce cewa hakori mai tsabta yana kare lafiya.

Both mean roughly “The doctor said that a clean tooth protects health.”

In many cases, especially in speech, cewa is simply left out, as in your sentence.

What exactly does hakori mean? Is it “tooth” or “teeth” here?

Hakori is grammatically singular and means tooth. The plural is hakora (teeth).

However, Hausa often uses the singular in a generic sense, to talk about a whole class:

• hakori here = tooth (in general) / teeth in general

So hakori mai tsabta is best understood as a clean tooth / clean teeth (in general), not just one specific tooth. English usually switches to the plural “teeth” in this kind of general statement, but Hausa does not have to.

What does mai tsabta literally mean, and why does it mean “clean”?

Literally:

• mai – having, possessing
• tsabta – cleanliness

So mai tsabta is literally “one that has cleanliness”, which corresponds to clean.

This mai + noun pattern is very common:

• mai lafiya – (one) having health → healthy
• mai hankali – (one) having sense → sensible, wise
• hakori mai tsabta – tooth having cleanliness → clean tooth

So instead of a simple adjective, Hausa often uses mai + a noun.

Is mai tsabta an adjective? Where do adjectives normally go in Hausa?

Functionally, mai tsabta acts like an adjective phrase describing hakori.

In Hausa, descriptive elements normally come after the noun:

• hakori mai tsabta – a clean tooth
• motar ja – red car (literally: car red)

With mai, the pattern is:

• [noun] + mai + [noun/adjectival noun]

So hakori mai tsabta is “tooth + having + cleanliness” → clean tooth.
You wouldn’t reverse it as ✗ mai tsabta hakori for this meaning.

What tense or aspect is yana kare? Does it mean “is protecting” or “protects”?

Yana is a combination of:

• ya – he/it (3rd person singular subject pronoun)
• na – progressive/habitual marker

Together, yana + verb often corresponds to English “is …‑ing” or a habitual “does”:

• yana kare lafiya can be understood as:
  • is protecting health, or
  • protects health (habitually, generally).

In a general statement like this, English usually prefers the simple present:
“A clean tooth protects health.”

So grammatically it’s a progressive/habitual form, but in context it gives a general, always-true idea.

Why is it yana kare lafiya and not something like “yana kare lafiyarka” (your health)? Whose health is meant?

The word lafiya by itself means health, well‑being in a general sense.

In many Hausa sentences, when something is stated as a general truth or advice, lafiya is used without a possessive pronoun:

• Abinci mai kyau yana ƙara lafiya. – Good food increases health.
• Hakori mai tsabta yana kare lafiya. – A clean tooth protects health.

It is understood as one’s health / people’s health in general, not a specific person’s.
If you needed to be specific, you could add a possessive, e.g. lafiyarka (your health), lafiyarsu (their health), etc.

Could you change the word order in the second part, or must it be hakori mai tsabta yana kare lafiya?

In this clause, the basic order must be:

1. Subject noun phrase: hakori mai tsabta
2. Verb (with its subject pronoun inside it): yana kare
3. Object: lafiya

So hakori mai tsabta yana kare lafiya is the normal order:
[clean tooth] [is protecting/protects] [health].

Reordering like ✗ yana kare lafiya hakori mai tsabta would be wrong in standard Hausa for this meaning; the subject should not be moved to the end in this simple declarative sentence.

If the doctor were a woman, how would the sentence change?

Only the subject pronoun for “doctor” would change:

• Likita ta ce hakori mai tsabta yana kare lafiya.

Changes:

• ya ce (he said) → ta ce (she said)

Everything else stays the same. The profession noun Likita itself does not change form for gender.