Learn Hardcore Hausa: Don tsaro, likita ya ba mu kashedi mu cire takalma kafin mu shiga asibiti. - For safety, the doctor gave us a warning to take off our shoes before entering the hospital.

don is a shortened form of domin. In speech and informal writing, domin often becomes don.
Both domin tsaro and don tsaro are acceptable; don just sounds more colloquial / natural in everyday speech.

So the phrase is giving the reason for the instruction that follows: “For safety (reasons), the doctor…”

In likita ya ba mu kashedi, what is the structure? Which word is the verb and what does ba mu mean?

The core structure is:

likita – doctor (subject)
ya – 3rd person masculine singular subject marker + perfective (roughly “he” in the past/completed aspect)
ba – verb “to give”
mu – object pronoun “us”
kashedi – warning

So ya ba mu kashedi literally means “he gave us a warning”.

Important point:
Here ba is NOT the negative particle. It is the verb “give”, from ba wa (to give someone something). Don’t confuse this with the negative pattern ba … ba.

Couldn’t Hausa say “he warned us” more directly? Why use ya ba mu kashedi (“gave us a warning”)?

Yes, Hausa can say this more directly. Common options include:

Likita ya gargaɗe mu – The doctor warned us.
Likita ya yi mana kashedi – literally The doctor did a warning for us.

The sentence you have:

Likita ya ba mu kashedi – The doctor gave us a warning

is a very natural way to express “warned us,” using a light verb + noun pattern (ba + kashedi) instead of a single verb.

So:

ya ba mu kashedi = ya yi mana kashedi ≈ he warned us

Why does mu appear so many times: ya ba mu kashedi mu cire takalma kafin mu shiga asibiti?

The mu appears with two different roles:

ba mu – object pronoun “us”:
- ya ba mu kashedi – he gave *us a warning*
mu as subject of the following subordinate clauses:
- mu cire takalma – that *we remove (our) shoes*
- kafin mu shiga asibiti – before *we enter the hospital*

In English you might say:

He warned us to remove our shoes before (we) enter the hospital.

We can drop the second we in English; Hausa normally keeps the subject pronoun for each clause:

… kashedi mu cire takalma kafin mu shiga asibiti.

So the repetition of mu is normal and grammatically required in Hausa.

What is the function of mu cire takalma after kashedi? Is mu cire like an infinitive “to remove”?

Yes, functionally it’s similar to English “to remove” in “warned us to remove…”, but structurally it’s a subordinate clause with its own subject:

mu – subject pronoun “we”
cire – bare verb “remove”
takalma – shoes

So mu cire takalma literally means “that we remove (our) shoes”.

In Hausa, after a noun like kashedi (warning), you can have a clause that explains the content of the warning. Here, that clause is mu cire takalma.

Why is it just takalma and not something like takalmanmu (“our shoes”)? How do you say “our shoes” explicitly?

Takalma on its own usually already implies “(our) shoes” in a context like this, because:

It’s clear the shoes belong to the people being warned.
Hausa often omits possessive pronouns when the owner is obvious from context.

If you want to be explicit:

Singular: takalmi – a shoe
Plural: takalma – shoes
Plural + our: takalmanmu – our shoes

So a more explicit version would be:

… ya ba mu kashedi mu cire takalmanmu …
… he warned us to remove our shoes …

The given sentence is just a little lighter and more natural.

What does kafin mean here, and how does kafin mu shiga asibiti work grammatically?

Kafin means “before” (as a conjunction).

Kafin mu shiga asibiti breaks down as:

kafin – before
mu – subject pronoun “we”
shiga – enter, go in
asibiti – hospital

So the clause means “before we enter the hospital”.

Grammatically, kafin introduces a time clause that says when the action in the main clause should take place:

… mu cire takalma kafin mu shiga asibiti.
… (we should) remove our shoes before we enter the hospital.

Is asibiti a Hausa word or a borrowing? Does it have any grammatical gender?

Asibiti (hospital) is a borrowing (ultimately from Arabic al‑bīmaristān, via other languages). It’s fully integrated into Hausa vocabulary.

Hausa does not have grammatical gender like French or Spanish. Asibiti is just a regular noun; you don’t need to learn it as “masculine” or “feminine.”

What exactly does tsaro mean here? Is it a noun or a verb?

Tsaro is a noun, meaning:

safety
security
protection

In the phrase don tsaro:

don – for, for the sake of
tsaro – safety / security

So don tsaro = “for safety (reasons)” / “for security reasons.”

Is ya here a verb “he did,” or just a tense marker? What tense/aspect is it?

In likita ya ba mu kashedi:

ya is the 3rd person masculine singular subject marker plus perfective aspect.

You can think of it as marking “he (did something, completed)”.

So:

ya ba mu kashedi – he gave us a warning (completed action)
If it were habitual/present, you might see something like likita na ba mu kashedi – the doctor (usually) warns us / keeps warning us.

Could the sentence be reordered, for example moving don tsaro to the end? Would that change the meaning?

You can move don tsaro without changing the basic meaning, though the emphasis shifts slightly.

Your sentence:

Don tsaro, likita ya ba mu kashedi mu cire takalma kafin mu shiga asibiti.
For safety, the doctor warned us to remove our shoes before we enter the hospital.

Possible reordering:

Likita ya ba mu kashedi mu cire takalma kafin mu shiga asibiti don tsaro.

This still means essentially:

The doctor warned us to remove our shoes before we enter the hospital, for safety.

Sentence‑initial don tsaro sounds like a framing reason (setting the context). Sentence‑final don tsaro sounds more like an afterthought explanation, but it’s a subtle difference.

Is there any difference between ba mu (give us) and the negative pattern ba mu … ba (“we did not …”)? They look similar.

They look similar but are completely different structures:

ba mu (in your sentence):
- ba – verb give
- mu – object pronoun us
- Example: ya ba mu kashedi – he gave us a warning
ba mu … ba (negative):
- ba – negative particle at the beginning
- mu – subject pronoun we
- final ba – closing negative
- Example: ba mu shiga asibiti ba – we did not enter the hospital.

So:

ya ba mu kashedi – he gave us a warning (no negation)
ba mu shiga asibiti ba – we did not enter the hospital (negation)

Context and the presence of the second ba at the end tell you which is which.