Learn Tagalog 08

“To be something” in Tagalog

In this video, we’ll see how to say to be something in Tagalog.

This is actually very easy.

First example:

 Turista  ako. 

Literally  Tourist  I. 

Or I’m a tourist.

As you can see, there is no verb "to be" in Tagalog. Isn’t that easy? It’s just tourist I, tourist you, tourist he and so on.

Another example:

 Masarap  ito. 

Literally  Delicious  this (near me). 

Or This is delicious.

Again, no verb "to be". It doesn’t get any simpler.

Next example:

 Masarap  ang  cake. 

Literally  Delicious  the  cake. 

Ang is a marker. In this case, it indicates that I’m talking about a particular cake. The marker ang can usually be translated as the in English.

The sentence means: The cake is delicious.

And then the last example:

 Mabait  si  John. 

Literally Kind  [si]  John. 

The word si is a marker, just like ang in the previous sentence. It has the same function as ang, but it’s used with personal names. It indicates that we’re talking about a particular person called John. There’s no English translation for si. It just doesn’t exist in English.

The meaning of the sentence is, of course: John is kind.

In the next video, we’ll do some drills so you can practice what you’ve just learned.

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