Learn Hardcore Hausa: Hauwa tana jin ciwo saboda tana da cuta mai suna maleriya. - Hauwa is feeling ill because she has a disease called malaria.

Hauwa ta ji ciwo = Hauwa felt pain / Hauwa got sick (completed action).
Hauwa tana jin ciwo = Hauwa is feeling pain / Hauwa is sick (ongoing state now).

tana therefore emphasizes that the situation is current and continuous.

Why do we say jin ciwo instead of just ciwo for “to be sick / to feel pain”?

In Hausa, jin ciwo literally means “to feel pain”:

jin = the verbal noun from ji (to feel, to hear, to sense)
ciwo = pain / sickness / illness

So tana jin ciwo is literally she is feeling pain, which is how Hausa naturally expresses she is sick / she is in pain.

Saying just ciwo without jin doesn’t make a complete predicate:

Hauwa tana ciwo – understandable, but sounds a bit off / less standard.
Hauwa tana jin ciwo – idiomatic and natural.

Think of jin ciwo as a fixed, common expression for being unwell.

What tense/aspect does tana jin ciwo express? Is it strictly “right now”?

tana expresses the progressive / continuous aspect. It usually covers:

Right now: Hauwa is sick / in pain (at the moment).
Currently / these days: Hauwa has been sick (for some time, and still is).

Context usually decides whether it sounds more like “right now” or “these days,” but in any case it describes an ongoing state, not a completed one.

How would the sentence change if we were talking about a man instead of Hauwa?

Because Hauwa is feminine, we use tana.
For a man (e.g. Musa), we use yana (masculine 3rd person singular):

Musa yana jin ciwo saboda yana da cuta mai suna maleriya.
Musa is sick because he has a disease called malaria.

Key change:

Feminine: tana
Masculine: yana

What does saboda mean, and where does it normally appear in the sentence?

saboda means “because” or “due to / on account of”.

In this sentence:

Hauwa tana jin ciwo = Hauwa is sick / in pain
saboda = because
tana da cuta mai suna maleriya = she has a disease called malaria

So the structure is:
[Result] saboda [Reason]

That is a normal and very common pattern:

Na makara saboda mota ta yi fashi. – I’m late because my car broke down.

How does tana da cuta express “she has a disease”? What does da do here?

In Hausa, possession is commonly expressed with (pronoun) + na/ne/ni/ke + da or simply (pronoun) + na/ne/ni + da, but in the present progressive construction, you often see:

tana da X = she has X
yana da X = he has X
suna da X = they have X

In this case:

tana da cuta = she has a disease / she is ill (has an illness)

The word da here functions like “with / having”, but the whole expression is best thought of as the standard way to say “has” in this kind of clause.

What exactly does cuta mai suna maleriya mean word for word?

Breakdown:

cuta = disease / illness
mai = a particle meaning roughly “that has / that possesses”
suna = name
maleriya = malaria

So cuta mai suna maleriya is literally:

“a disease that has the name malaria”
→ Natural English: “a disease called malaria.”

What is the role of mai in mai suna? I’ve seen mai used for “owner” or “the one who has”.

You’re right: mai often indicates “the one that has X / the possessor of X”.

Examples:

mai mota = car owner (one who has a car)
mai lafiya = someone who is healthy (has health)

In cuta mai suna maleriya:

mai suna = that has the name

So mai here links cuta (disease) with suna (name):

disease that has the name malaria → a disease called malaria.

It’s a very common pattern for saying “called X” about people and things:

wani mutum mai suna Ali – a man called Ali

Can you leave out mai suna and just say “cuta maleriya”?

You can simplify, depending on context:

Hauwa tana jin ciwo saboda tana da maleriya.
– Very natural and common: Hauwa is sick because she has malaria.
Hauwa tana jin ciwo saboda tana da cutar maleriya.
– Also natural: …because she has the disease malaria.
cutar here is the definite form of cuta (roughly “the disease”).
cuta mai suna maleriya just sounds a bit more formal or explanatory, like “a disease which is called malaria.” It’s especially common when introducing a name that might be new or technical.

So yes, you can often drop mai suna, especially when the illness name is familiar.

What is the basic word order in this sentence? Is it the usual order for Hausa?

The sentence:

Hauwa tana jin ciwo saboda tana da cuta mai suna maleriya.

follows the normal Hausa word order:

Subject – Hauwa
Aspect/verb phrase – tana jin
Object/complement – ciwo
Subordinator – saboda (“because”)
Clause 2: subject (understood = Hauwa), aspect/verb, complement – tana da cuta mai suna maleriya

This is basically S – V – O/C.
Hausa is consistently subject–verb–object, with conjunctions like saboda linking full clauses, just like “because” in English.

How would you say “Hauwa is not sick because she does not have malaria” using this structure?

You can negate both clauses:

Hauwa ba ta jin ciwo – Hauwa is not feeling pain / not sick
saboda – because
ba ta da maleriya. – she does not have malaria.

Full sentence:

Hauwa ba ta jin ciwo saboda ba ta da maleriya.

Notice:

ba … ta … pattern to negate with ta / tana
ba ta da X = she does not have X.

Is maleriya just the Hausa form of the English word “malaria”?

Yes. maleriya is a borrowed word from “malaria”, adapted to Hausa pronunciation and spelling.

The spelling maleriya reflects how it’s usually pronounced in Hausa:

ma-le-RI-ya

There isn’t a different indigenous everyday word for malaria in modern standard Hausa; maleriya is the normal term.