Breakdown of Malami ya ba mu labari game da maleriya a darasin kimiyya.
Questions & Answers about Malami ya ba mu labari game da maleriya a darasin kimiyya.
Ya is the 3rd person singular subject pronoun and also marks a completed (perfective) action.
- Malami ya ba mu labari...
Literally: Teacher he-gave us story...
In Hausa, a full subject noun (Malami) is usually followed by a subject pronoun (ya for he/it in masculine). You normally need both:
- ✅ Malami ya ba mu labari... – The teacher gave us a story...
- ❌ Malami ba mu labari... – ungrammatical as a main clause
So ya here is both:
- agreeing with Malami (he), and
- putting the verb ba (give) into a past/completed form.
No. In this sentence ba is a verb meaning to give.
- ba = give
- ba mu labari = give us a story / information
The negative pattern in Hausa is different. Negation typically uses ba ... ba, for example:
- Ba malami ya ba mu labari ba. – It was not the teacher who told us the story.
- Ba ya ba mu labari. – He does not give us a story.
So:
- ba alone here = give
- ba ... ba structure = negation (different function)
Mu is the object pronoun meaning us.
In this verb pattern:
- ba = give
- mu = us (indirect object pronoun)
- labari = story / information (the thing given)
So the structure is:
[Verb] + [object pronoun] + [thing given]
ba mu labari = give us a story/information
Other examples with object pronouns:
- ya ba ni labari – he gave me a story / told me
- ya ba shi littafi – he gave him a book
- ya ba su kudi – he gave them money
In Hausa, object pronouns usually come right after the verb, before the main object noun.
Word order pattern:
Subject – subject pronoun – verb – object pronoun – object noun
In our sentence:
- Malami – subject (teacher)
- ya – subject pronoun (he)
- ba – verb (give)
- mu – object pronoun (us)
- labari – object noun (story/information)
So:
- ✅ ya ba mu labari – correct word order
- ❌ ya ba labari mu – incorrect / unnatural
Labari can mean all of these, depending on context. Common meanings:
story / tale
- ya ba mu labari – he told us a story
news
- labarai na duniya – world news
information / report
- labari game da maleriya – information/report about malaria
In this sentence, because it is in a science lesson, labari is best understood as information / explanation rather than a fictional story.
Yes, game da is a very common way to say about / concerning something.
Pattern:
labari game da X – information / story about X
magana game da X – talk / speech about X
Examples:
- game da maleriya – about malaria
- game da tarihin Najeriya – about the history of Nigeria
- game da kai – about you
You typically use game da before a noun or pronoun. It is roughly equivalent to English about, and is very natural in both spoken and written Hausa.
A is a preposition that usually means in, at, on depending on context.
Here:
- a darasin kimiyya = in the science lesson
So the structure is:
ya ba mu labari game da maleriya a darasin kimiyya
he gave us information about malaria in the science lesson
Other examples with a:
- a makaranta – at school / in school
- a gida – at home / in the house
- a safiya – in the morning
So a introduces a location or time phrase. In this sentence, it tells where/when the teacher gave the information.
Darasin kimiyya is a genitive (possessive) construction meaning lesson of science → science lesson.
- darasi – lesson
- -n – genitive linker (attaches to a noun ending in a vowel)
- kimiyya – science
So:
- darasi + -n + kimiyya → darasin kimiyya = lesson of science
This -n (or -r, -ɗan, etc. in other contexts) often links two nouns where English would use of or make a compound:
- littafin yaro – the boy’s book / book of the boy
- motar malam – the teacher’s car
- darasin kimiyya – science lesson
You might hear na used in some similar expressions, but in this particular phrase the most natural, standard form is:
- a darasin kimiyya – in the science lesson
Na is also a genitive linker (of), but here the simple -n suffixed to darasi is the normal construction.
So:
- ✅ a darasin kimiyya – standard and natural
- ❌ a darasi na kimiyya – unusual / not the usual way to say science lesson
Yes, maleriya is a loanword, essentially the same disease name as English malaria, adapted to Hausa spelling and pronunciation.
- Spelling: maleriya (with ye to represent the ia sound)
- It usually does not take a plural form, because it is a disease name.
So game da maleriya = about malaria.
The form ya before the verb ba tells us this is a completed (perfective) action, usually translated as past in English:
- Malami ya ba mu labari... – The teacher gave us information...
To express a habitual / ongoing action (like The teacher tells us information about malaria in science class), Hausa would typically use a progressive/imperfective form such as:
- Malami yana ba mu labari game da maleriya a darasin kimiyya.
– The teacher (usually) tells / is telling us information about malaria in the science lesson.
So:
- ya ba → completed / past
- yana ba → ongoing / habitual
Yes. You can move the location phrase to the front for emphasis or style:
- A darasin kimiyya, malami ya ba mu labari game da maleriya.
This still means the same thing:
- In the science lesson, the teacher gave us information about malaria.
The core grammar stays the same; only the focus/emphasis changes. Putting a darasin kimiyya first emphasizes where this happened.
Hausa does not have articles like a and the, so malami by itself can mean:
- a teacher, the teacher, or teacher in general,
depending on context.
In a typical classroom context, Malami ya ba mu labari... would be understood as:
- The teacher gave us information... (the teacher of that class)
So the English translation uses the for naturalness, but Hausa malami is neutral and the definiteness comes from context.