Tagalog nouns – learning a language would not be complete without knowing nouns. Tagalog is no exception to this. But with Tagalog nouns, there is more than meets the eye.

Okay, just to set your expectations, this article is for the layman and is explained in layman’s terms meant for the Tagalog language learner. If you want something textbookish with all those fancy college linguistics terms like “ergative-absolutive”, this article isn’t for you. I’m not saying that studying these advanced linguistics grammar stuff isn’t important, since it they are for language scholars with thick glasses who study thicker books on grammar.

(Ergative-absolutive languages are languages, such as Tagalog where the single argument or “subject” of an intransitive verb behaves like the object of a transitive verb, and differently from the agent of a transitive verb. Uhmm… yeah, I didn’t just look that up right now.)

So here it is folks. Here are the stuff you have to know about Tagalog nouns…

Pangalan the Word for Name, and Pangngalan the type of word

First of all, let’s get things straight. The word noun in Tagalog is “pangngalan“. But the word “pangalan” is the word for name, as in “Ano ang pangalan mo?” (What is your name? ) or “Ang pangalan ko ay si Datu.” (My name is Datu.)

“Pang” meaning it for something + “ngalan” a root word connoting a name. It’s a word for naming something.

Pangalan = Name

Pangngalan = Noun

They are pronounced alike but don’t confuse the word “pangalan” with “pangangalan”. The shorter one means “noun” or the longer one means “name”. Okay, just wanted to get that out of the way.

Tagalog Nouns can be Root Words

Of course some nouns can be turned into a verbs or adjectives. But don’t worry, learning about nouns won’t even be half as crazy as learning about Tagalog verbs, (see article: Tagalog Prefixes, Infixes and Suffixes: Why Tagalog Verbs Drive Language Learners Crazy), which is absolute madness to non-native speakers. Tagalog nouns aren’t half as crazy as Tagalog pronouns either (see article: The Beginner’s Guide to Tagalog Pronouns). So no worries, hombre!

In fact many, Tagalog nouns however are often the root words themselves. Let’s take the word Tagalog noun “kamay” meaning “hand”. You can make it a verb “kinamay” which will make it mean to have “used one hands”, such as “Kinamay niya ang pagkain” meaning “He used his hands on the food (such as to eat).” or “Kamayin mo na.” meaning “(Go ahead and) Use your hands”.

Writing Tagalog Nouns

So before we go too far. let’s het this out of the way and talk about writing Tagalog nouns. The convention for writing Tagalog nouns, at least what they teach in school, is that just like English, Tagalog proper nouns are capitalized, and common nouns are written in small caps. So that means you will write some thing like:

“Siya ay isang presidente. Siya ay si Presidente Duterte.”

Of course, the first time the word presidente is used it’s written in small caps since presidente here is a common noun. It refers to any president. in the second one, Presidente is capitalized since it’s a proper noun refering to a specific person. Just the same as English, m’kay?

Tagalog Nouns Have No Gender

There are Tagalog words have no gender will be. Don’t be confused, about what I mean by this. What I mean is Tagalog nouns don’t have any grammatical gender, like they do in Spanish, French, German or Russian.

Some Tagalog words, especially those of Spanish origin, might give you the impression that they have grammatical gender, but they don’t. For example, a male doctor would be “doktor” and a female doctor would be a “doktora“. But in Tagalog they grammatically would have no gender.

You heard that right. Don’t get confused. Tagalog nouns have no grammatical gender. You might even hear the word “lamesa” used interchangeably with the word “mesa” which means table in Spanish and Tagalog (“la” is the feminine form of “the” in Spanish). But that doesn’t mean the noun has gender. Speaking of Spanish, let talk about loan words.

Lots of Nouns are Loan Words

Lots of Tagalog nouns are loan words, particularly in English and Spanish. Yup, loan words are everywhere in Tagalog. However, this is especially pronounced when learning Tagalog nouns. In fact, once you start learning nouns the loan words are just going to jump out at you.

Let’s have a look at some examples.

Tagalog – Spanish
kabayo – caballo
tinidor – tenedor
plato – plato

Tagalog – English
kompyuter – computer
karot – carrot
nars – nurse

There are just too many examples of loan words in English and Spanish so I’m going to leave it at that. It’s good noting though that even though English and Spanish make the majority of loan words in Tagalog, there are lots of loan words in other languages too such as Malay, Sanskrit, Tamil, Arabic, Persian, Chinese, Japanese, and Nahuatl (languages of the native Mexicans).

Use the English nouns if you don’t know the Tagalog noun

Don’t mind what your Tagalog text book or your Tagalog teacher says. If you don’t know what a noun is in Tagalog, just use the English equivalent. It will be 100% okay in everyday natural speech. Filipinos do it all the time.

For example: Masakit ang stomach ko kasi ang dami kong kinain. (My stomach hurts because I ate so much)

So obviously the seemingly offending word here is the English word “stomach”. Of course, in Tagalog, the word stomach is “tiyan” but swapping it with the word stomach is perfectly okay, and a very natural way to talk in Tagalog  Trust me on this, m’kay.

Use “Mga” to make Tagalog nouns plural

Ah! That weirdly spelled word  “mga“. Stick it in front of Tagalog words to make them plural. Yup, that all there is to it.

For example:

Kumain ako ng saging. (“I ate a banana.” or “I ate banana”).
Kumain ako ng mga saging. (I ate (more than one) bananas).

Grammatically, mga refers to more than one, but usually you’ll use it for more than two.

Try add the letter S to pluralize, when using Tagalog nouns, even when using loan words. It just sounds funny to native speaker.

For example:

“May nakita akong jaguars mga jaguar sa zoo.” (I saw some jaguars at the zoo.)

All cool, huh?

Conclusion

There’s a lot more I would love to add, but I’d rather not lump on all that textbookish grammar on Tagalog nouns. Just learning this you’ve got most of your bases covered. Nouns aren’t particularly the hardest part of learning Tagalog. Quite unlike Tagalog verbs which can really be a challenge. After all, when in doubt, just swap in the Tagalog noun with the English noun and it’s going to be understandable. Just don’t forget to slap on “mga” if you’re referring to more than one.

Further Reading:

Did you like this article on Tagalog nouns? You ain’t seen nothing yet. Check out our article on Tagalog verbs. Tagalog verbs are absolutely nuts.

We also have a number of Tagalog lessons and tests to test your mettle. Just scroll down on our home page to see them.

We also have an absolutely free no email required e-book called Your First 100 Tagalog Sentences. This link links to the page.