Page 10 - Essential Tagalog - Speak Tagalog with Confidence (TUTTLE)

Basic grammar

1 Sentence construction
A sentence is a group of words expressing a single thought. As in
English, a sentence in Tagalog consists of a topic and a predicate
(or comment about the topic), e.g. Si Juan [topic] ay tumakbo
[predicate] (John ran). In most cases the predicate in simple
sentence comes before the topic, e.g. Tumakbo si Juan (John
ran). There are other classes of sentences such as subjectless sen-
tences and existential sentences. For the purposes of this phrase
book, a knowledge of basic sentence construction will help users
to form sentences in Tagalog.

Akoy ay si Maria I am Maria
Kayumanggi ang kulay ng lupa Brown is the color of earth
Matamis ang manggang hinog The ripe mango is sweet
Nag-aaral si Ana Ana is studying
Manonood ako ng sine I am going to see a movie
Maysakit ka ba? Are you sick?
Sino ang titser mo? Who is your teacher?

The topic is normally a noun which is the name of anything.
There are two classes of nouns: common, e.g. tao (man), puso
(heart), hayop (animal), aso (dog); and proper, e.g. Juan (John),
Ana (Anne), Dios (God). A pronoun is sometimes used instead
of a noun.
Nouns have three numbers: singular, e.g. aklat (book); dual, e.g.
dalawang aklat (two books); and plural, e.g. mga aklat (books).
In Tagalog nouns are made plural by adding the word mga (an
article that denotes plurality) to the singular word, e.g. bata
(boy), mga bata (boys); papel (paper), mga papel (papers).
Nouns have four genders: masculine, e.g. ama (father); femi-
nine, e.g. ninang (godmother); common, e.g. pinsan (cousin);
and neuter, e.g. bahay (house).

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