Tagalog case markers: ang, ng and sa
9 cells. They decide the shape of every sentence in the language, and no course teaches them first. This one does.
The chart
Tagalog puts a small word in front of a noun to show what that noun is doing. Which word depends on two things: what the noun is doing, across the top, and what kind of noun it is, down the side.
| In front of… | angwhat it is about | ngwhose it is | sato / at / in |
|---|---|---|---|
| an ordinary thingbahay (house) | angPlay | ngPlay | saPlay |
| somebody's nameMaria | siPlay | niPlay | kayPlay |
| more than onebata (child) | ang mgaPlay | ng mgaPlay | sa mgaPlay |
There are recordings on this page. 9 of them are a synthetic fil-PH voice. A learner is owed the knowledge that the thing they are copying is not always a person; human recordings replace the synthetic ones from the top of the list down.
The three jobs
ang, the one the sentence is about
Marks the thing in focus. Closest to the subject of an English sentence, though it is really about what the sentence is pointing at.
ng, whose it is, or what it is part of
Marks the other participant: the owner, the doer, or the thing acted on. Written ng, said like nang.
sa, to, at, in, or for
Marks place, direction, and who something is given to.
The nine cells in a sentence
The chart is easier to hold on to once you have heard each cell doing its job. Every line below is one cell of the grid above.
| What you mean | What you say |
|---|---|
| The house is big. | ang bahay ay malakiPlay___ bahay ay malaki |
| the roof of the house | bubong ng bahayPlaybubong ___ bahay |
| at the house | sa bahayPlay___ bahay |
| Maria is a teacher. | si Maria ay guroPlay___ Maria ay guro |
| Maria's book | libro ni MariaPlaylibro ___ Maria |
| give it to Maria | ibigay kay MariaPlayibigay ___ Maria |
| The children are playing. | ang mga bata ay naglalaroPlay___ bata ay naglalaro |
| the children's toys | laruan ng mga bataPlaylaruan ___ bata |
| give it to the children | ibigay sa mga bataPlayibigay ___ bata |
Why this is the first thing to learn
Six words, ang, ng, sa, si, ni and kay, plus mga for more than one, carry the structure of every sentence you will hear. They are short, they are unstressed, and they go past fast, which is exactly why a beginner hears Tagalog as one long word. Learn the chart and the sentence comes apart into pieces.
They are also settled fact rather than a claim about usage, which is why the ang / ng / sa and si, ni, kay skills are open and free while the phrase skills wait for a native speaker. The review record is here.
Start with the free sectionThe six words that run the language — Tagalog puts a little word in front of every noun to show what it is doing. There are only six of them. No account, nothing to install.The frequency ordering on this site is an informed estimate, not a corpus count. There is no published frequency count for conversational Tagalog, so it prints a rank and never a percentage. When a real count exists, the order changes and this line changes with it.
It teaches Tagalog as spoken around Manila, which is not the same thing as Filipino and is not the whole country. Cebuano and Ilocano are different languages, not accents.
Nothing is drilled until a native speaker has checked it. What has been checked, by whom, and what is still owed is written down on the sources page.
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