The completed form of a mag- actor-voice family normally replaces mag- with nag-: magluto → nagluto, magtrabaho → nagtrabaho, and mag-aral → nag-aral. It presents an event as a bounded whole or as having reached its relevant endpoint; it is not simply a Filipino past tense.
The actor remains the pivot throughout the change in aspect. For the broader contrast between bounded and internally viewed events, see completed aspect.
Replace mag- with nag-
Do not add n to an already complete verb word. Identify the root and the mag- family, then use the completed prefix nag-. Consonant-initial roots are written solid; a hyphen marks the boundary before a vowel-initial root.
| Root shape | Root | Basic form | Completed form | Typical frame |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Consonant-initial | luto | magluto | nagluto | actor pivot + ng product |
| Consonant cluster | trabaho | magtrabaho | nagtrabaho | actor pivot + location/time |
| Vowel-initial | aral | mag-aral | nag-aral | actor pivot + topic/location |
| Vowel-initial | ayos | mag-ayos | nag-ayos | actor pivot + ng affected item |
| Vowel-initial | uwi | mag-uwi | nag-uwi | actor pivot + ng item taken home |
The last row shows why the root alone is not an English verb. Nag-uwi means that the actor took or brought something home; umuwi means that the actor went home. The affix changes the participant structure.
Nag-aral si Ken sa aklatan bago ang pagsusulit.
Ken studied at the library before the exam.
Nag-ayos ang teknisyan ng mikropono bago nagsimula ang programa.
The technician adjusted a microphone before the program began.
Nag-uwi si Pilar ng dalawang kahon mula sa opisina.
Pilar took two boxes home from the office.
Completed aspect is not identical to past time
Completed events often occurred before speech time, so English translations frequently use a past form. The grammar itself, however, says that the event is viewed as complete or bounded. Time comes from context, adverbs, or a larger clause.
Nagtanim kami ng kamatis noong Sabado.
We planted tomatoes on Saturday.
Noong Sabado gives past time; nagtanim packages the planting as a whole. Completed aspect can also be evaluated relative to a future reference point:
Kapag naglinis na kami ng kusina, papasukin na namin ang mga bisita.
Once we have cleaned the kitchen, we will let the guests in.
Inside the kapag condition, the cleaning is viewed as completed before the still-future admitting event. English uses “have cleaned,” but Filipino needs no dedicated future-perfect ending. Na reinforces the achieved boundary.
It can also report a recent result whose consequences matter now:
Nagbayad na ako, kaya puwede na tayong umalis.
I've paid already, so we can leave now.
The more specific recent-perfective pattern has its own morphology with some verb families; ordinary nagbayad na simply combines completed aspect with na and is fully natural.
Voice and valency remain lexical
With nag-, the actor pivot takes ang/si, while a core non-pivot product or affected participant commonly takes ng. A goal, location, or recipient generally takes sa/kay when the lexical construction licenses it.
Nagsulat si Abby ng maikling liham kay Lola Nena.
Abby wrote a short letter to Grandma Nena.
Here si Abby is the actor pivot, ng maikling liham is the created product, and kay Lola Nena is the personal addressee. The completed prefix does not itself make a verb transitive: nagtrabaho can occur without a patient, while nagsulat can license a product.
Compare the same root across aspect:
Nagluto si Ruel ng lugaw para sa mga bantay.
Ruel cooked rice porridge for the guards.
Nagluluto si Ruel ng lugaw habang naghihiwa ako ng luya.
Ruel is cooking rice porridge while I slice ginger.
The completed nagluto presents the cooking as bounded; incompleted nagluluto opens an internal view of the same kind of event. Actor voice and the si ... ng ... alignment stay constant.
Compare voice using the same root:
Nagbukas ang tagapangasiwa ng ikalawang pinto.
The supervisor opened the second door.
Binuksan ng tagapangasiwa ang ikalawang pinto.
The supervisor opened the second door.
Both events are completed. The first selects the supervisor as pivot; the second selects the door. Voice selection is therefore independent of completed aspect, although discourse influences which form a speaker chooses.
Negation and questions
Hindi negates a completed clause without undoing its aspectual form. Ba normally occupies the enclitic cluster near the first phrase or predicate.
Hindi nagdala si Mico ng payong kahit makulimlim.
Mico did not bring an umbrella even though it was cloudy.
—Nagpadala ba si Joy ng kopya sa iyo? —Oo, nagpadala siya kaninang umaga.
—Did Joy send you a copy? —Yes, she sent one this morning.
The negative says that no completed bringing event occurred in the relevant interval. It does not require a special negative conjugation. In the exchange, ba follows the first predicate word, and the pronouns keep natural clitic placement.
Lexical restrictions and variation
The replacement mag- → nag- is regular only after a word is known to belong to a mag- family. It does not predict which roots select that family. For “arrive,” standard Filipino uses dumating, not invented nagdating. For “cook,” standard actor voice uses nagluto, not lumuto.
A root is a family of constructions, and one citation form hides the derivational system. Akyat, for instance, distinguishes umakyat “go/climb up” from nag-akyat “carry or bring something up”:
Nag-akyat ang mga boluntaryo ng pagkain sa ikalawang palapag ng sentro ng paglikas.
The volunteers carried food up to the second floor of the evacuation center.
Some roots allow accepted variation. Nagbiyahe and bumiyahe both occur in contemporary usage for “traveled,” depending on the speaker and collocation. That doublet must be learned with biyahe; it does not make nag- and -um- freely interchangeable.
Common Mistakes
Keeping mag- for an explicitly completed event
❌ Maghugas si Olan ng mga baso pagkatapos ng handaan kagabi.
Incorrect for the intended completed event — maghugas is the basic form.
✅ Naghugas si Olan ng mga baso pagkatapos ng handaan kagabi.
Olan washed the glasses after the gathering last night.
Kagabi locates the event in the past, while naghugas supplies the bounded event view.
Attaching an English ending
❌ Naglinis-ed si Vera ng tatlong kuwarto.
Incorrect — do not attach English -ed to a Filipino aspect form.
✅ Naglinis si Vera ng tatlong kuwarto.
Vera cleaned three rooms.
The completed prefix already does the grammatical work; an English ending cannot be added to it.
Dropping the hyphen before a vowel-initial root
❌ Nagaral kami tungkol sa lindol bago ang pagsasanay.
Incorrect careful spelling — the productive prefix must be separated from vowel-initial aral.
✅ Nag-aral kami tungkol sa lindol bago ang pagsasanay.
We studied earthquakes before the drill.
This is an orthographic correction; the pronunciation and meaning are unchanged.
Mixing actor-voice and patient-voice markers
❌ Nagluto ni Tomas ang natitirang isda.
Incorrect actor-voice alignment — ni and ang do not match nagluto here.
✅ Nagluto si Tomas ng natitirang isda.
Tomas cooked the remaining fish.
This correction makes Tomas the pivot. A patient-pivot version would instead require Niluto ni Tomas ang natitirang isda.
Key Takeaways
- Replace basic mag- with completed nag-: maglinis → naglinis, mag-aral → nag-aral.
- Keep the hyphen before a vowel-initial or visibly unassimilated borrowed base.
- Completed aspect presents an event as bounded; context supplies past, present-result, or future-relative time.
- Aspect does not change actor-voice alignment or automatically determine valency.
- Learn family membership and lexical meaning with each root; regular formation does not make affix selection predictable from English.
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Start learning Filipino →Related Topics
- The mag- actor voice: Function and DistributionB1 — Understand what mag- actor-voice verbs contribute, where they occur, and why their meanings must be learned as lexical families.
- The mag- actor voice: Incompleted-Aspect FormationB1 — Build incompleted mag- actor-voice forms for ongoing, habitual, repeated, and backgrounded events.
- The mag- actor voice: Contemplated-Aspect FormationB1 — Form contemplated mag- actor-voice verbs and distinguish unbegun events from commands, intentions, and English future tense.
- Completed AspectA2 — Use completed or perfective verb forms to present an event as a bounded whole while keeping aspect distinct from past tense and voice.
- Verb Paradigms as Aspect-and-Voice FamiliesA2 — Read Filipino verb paradigms as intersecting choices of event aspect and participant voice rather than as English tense conjugations.
- Marker Choice with Actor-Voice VerbsA1 — Choose ang, ng, and sa phrases with actor-voice verbs by identifying the actor pivot, core patient, and oblique participants.