MY FAVORITE MISTAKES (in Filipino Grammar)

The Philippines has always been proud of its high literacy rate, always more or less at the 90+% rate year in year out. On top of that, 56% of the population are well-versed in the English language that we are even more particular in grammar and vocabulary compared to native speakers. In fact the middle and upper classes of society have coined the term "Grammar Nazi" to pertain to people who spot and correct grammatical errors at point blank. This becomes very common, especially in the age of social media where more than half of the posts you see by Filipinos are actually expressed in English. What fancies me, however, is the fact that we are actually very prone to drawing ourselves into the same pitfall --- that is, get really bad in our native language's basic grammar 101s.

So as much as grammar nazis hate the famous subject-verb agreement errors popularized by pop songs ("she don't love me") and favorite homophone mistakes (your and you're, their and they're), I'm listing 5 of the most common Filipino (Tagalog to be specific) grammatical errors that I encounter in daily conversations.

1) Nang/Ng - similar to the they're and their etc, this Filipino homophone is the most favorite mistake of all time. Nang is an adverb (pang-abay) therefore should be followed by a verb or an adjective, while Ng is a preposition ("of" in English) thus should be followed by a noun.

e.g. gumising NANG maaga, gusto NANG umatras, vs. uminom NG tubig, nagtakal NG bigas. And don't mistake it with the contracted "NA + ANG". It's a little similar to "already" e.g. wala NANG pera, or mayroon NANG kuryente

Nang is also a substitute for "noong", as in NANG siya ay umalis. Also a substitute for "para" as in maligo ka NANG bumango. But those are more on the formal use.

2) Verb conjugation in the Past Tense - Generally, if the verb begins with a consonant, past tense becomes first letter + in + the rest of the verb. If the verb begins with a vowel, you write "in", and then the verb. This goes true for verbs requiring a direct object (tuwirang layon).

e.g. kuha = kINuha ang... , amoy = INamoy ang... , patong = pINatong sa... , inom = INinom ang...

But of course there is an exception for verbs beginning with the letter L, wherein you use the format "ni + verb"

e.g. lagay = nilagay ang... , luto = niluto ang...

So it's actually wrong to say nikuha, nipatong, niganyan, niganon. They're probably just trying to sound cute. :P

3) Verb conjugation in the Present Tense - For present tense, the repetitive syllable will always be the first syllable of the verb and not the "KA".

e.g. Nakaiinis, not Nakakainis. So it's actually wrong to say Nakakapagpabagabag because it should be Nakapagpapabagabag. :)

4) Spelling 101 - the SMS and social media age has brought about major changes with the way we spell our native words. It's HINDI and not HINDE, LALAKI and not LALAKE, SINABI and not SINABE. And because Tagalog is simply pronounced as spelled and vice-versa, please, we need to hear the /i/ sound and not the /eh/.

5) Raw/Daw = you use RAW if followed by a word ending in a vowel. DAW is used when preceded by a word that ends in a consonant. Exceptions are letters W and Y as they sound like vowels.

sinabi RAW ni Pepe, not sinabi daw
inamin DAW ng kriminal, not inamin raw
palay RAW ang ani, not palay daw
mababaw RAW ang ilog, not mababaw daw

BONUS: Taglish conjugated verbs = I just love seeing words like "nag-swimming", "magta-Timezone" and other horrible conjugations of both Tagalog and English verbs. They seem to be generally acceptable now, but only in as far as human understanding is concerned (lol). I myself could not think of a straight rule for this, but it really pains me to see Tagalog letters in between English words, like:

pinakuluan = binoil
pinadala = sinend
kinulot = cinurl (how do you even pronounce that?!)

And because they are both grammatically and aesthetically ugly, can we please just settle with them being unacceptable? :P


I gave you the jumpstart and you may think of several more. We may laugh, yes, but we're not being grammar Nazis here. Anybody who hasn't made a mistake in either languages is by the way called a grammar freak already. And I'm not saying that we Filipinos should just stick to English either. Our language is part of our identity, and the rules around its grammar is not meant to alienate any speaker or writer, but to simply act as a guide to its art form, and for the sole purpose of communication and universal understanding.

Oh and the next time you greet someone hello, say KUmusta and not KAmusta --- because it's actually from the Spanish "como estas." :) #