Learn Tagalog 18

Let’s have a look at examples. You’re surely familiar with the pattern in the first example:

 Maganda  ka. 

Literally:  Beautiful  you. 

In natural English: You’re beautiful.

And now, the second example:

 Ang ganda  mo. 

Literally:  How beautiful  of you. 

In natural English: You’re so beautiful.

What happened here? Maganda became ang ganda and ka became mo.

Let’s first take a closer look at Maganda ka.

Maganda is actually made up of the affix ma-, which means having a certain quality, and the root ganda, which means beauty.

Putting ma- and ganda together, we get having beauty or simply, beautiful.

How about Ang ganda mo?

In this case, we see ang and the root ganda. Now this ang here is used as an intensifier, not as the usual marker. It is followed by the root of the adjective.

Ang plus the root intensifies the meaning of the root. The meaning becomes how beautiful or so beautiful.

Ang plus root can be followed by a Ng phrase, but not by an Ang phrase. That explains why it’s mo and not ka. Ka is an Ang phrase, whereas mo is a Ng phrase.

By the way, not all adjectives have a ma- affix.

For example, you can say:
Cute siya. – He or she is cute.
and Mahal ito. – This is expensive.

The intensified forms are:
Ang cute! – How cute!
and Ang mahal! – How expensive!