May luha sa mata ng aplikante.

May means there is / there are or sometimes has / have, depending on the sentence.

So May luha sa mata ng aplikante literally works like:

• May = there is
• luha = tear / tears
• sa mata ng aplikante = in the applicant’s eye(s)

A very natural English interpretation is There are tears in the applicant’s eyes.

Because this sentence is an existence sentence, not an action sentence.

It is not directly saying The applicant is crying with an action verb. Instead, it says that tears are present.

Compare:

• May luha sa mata ng aplikante. = There are tears in the applicant’s eyes.
• Umiiyak ang aplikante. = The applicant is crying.

So may is used because the sentence is presenting the existence of something: tears.

They are very close in meaning, and in many everyday situations they can replace each other.

For example:

• May luha sa mata ng aplikante.
• Merong luha sa mata ng aplikante.

Both are understandable and natural.

A few notes:

• May is shorter and very common.
• Meron / mayroón / merong is also common, especially in speech.
• In more formal or neat written style, may often looks simpler.

So yes, they are similar here.

Luha means tear or tears.

Like many Filipino nouns, it does not have to show singular/plural clearly unless the speaker wants to. Context tells you what is meant.

So luha can mean:

• a tear
• tears

In this sentence, English will usually say tears, because that sounds more natural.

If you really wanted to make it clearly plural in Filipino, you could say mga luha, but that is not necessary here and may sound less natural in this kind of sentence.

Sa is a very common marker that can mean things like:

• in
• on
• at
• to

Here, sa mata means in the eye / in the eyes.

So:

• sa = in
• mata = eye

Together: sa mata = in the eye(s)

It marks the location of the tears.

Good question. Literally, mata is eye, and mga mata is eyes.

But Filipino often does not mark plural unless it is important. In body-part expressions, the singular form can sound natural even when English would prefer a plural translation.

So:

• sa mata can naturally be understood as in the eyes
• sa mga mata is also possible if you want to emphasize both eyes or make the plural explicit

In this sentence, sa mata ng aplikante sounds normal and idiomatic.

Ng aplikante means of the applicant.

So:

• mata ng aplikante = the applicant’s eye(s)

This is a very common Filipino pattern for possession:

• bahay ng guro = the teacher’s house
• kotse ng doktor = the doctor’s car
• mata ng aplikante = the applicant’s eye(s)

So ng here is linking mata and aplikante in a possessive relationship.

Because ng aplikante names the possessor directly: the applicant.

If you already knew who the person was from context, you could use a pronoun:

• May luha sa mata niya. = There are tears in his/her eyes.

But when you want to identify the person clearly, you use the noun:

• ng aplikante = of the applicant

So the full noun is used here for clarity.

Aplikante is generally gender-neutral.

It can refer to:

• a male applicant
• a female applicant

Filipino nouns usually do not force gender the way some other languages do. If gender matters, it has to be shown by context or by adding extra words.

So on its own, aplikante just means applicant.

Because Filipino does not use articles the same way English does.

English often needs words like:

• a
• an
• the

Filipino usually does not.

Instead, Filipino uses markers like ang, ng, and sa, plus context, to show how words function in the sentence.

So:

• luha does not need a or the
• aplikante does not need the

English requires those choices more often than Filipino does.

Because this sentence is built as an existential sentence with may.

In many Filipino sentences, ang marks the topic or focus, as in:

• Ang aplikante ay umiiyak.

But with may, the thing that exists often appears directly after may without ang:

• May problema.
• May tao sa labas.
• May luha sa mata ng aplikante.

So the structure is normal: may + noun + location/other phrase.

Yes, but the original order is very natural.

The basic idea is:

• May
  • thing that exists + location

So:

• May luha sa mata ng aplikante.

You might also hear other arrangements in special contexts, but they can sound more marked or less neutral.

For example, if you say:

• Sa mata ng aplikante ay may luha.

This is still correct, but it is more fronted or stylistic, with emphasis on in the applicant’s eyes.

So the original version is the most straightforward everyday order.

Not exactly.

May luha sa mata ng aplikante tells you that tears are present. That strongly suggests crying, but it does not grammatically state the action itself.

Compare:

• May luha sa mata ng aplikante. = There are tears in the applicant’s eyes.
• Umiiyak ang aplikante. = The applicant is crying.

The first describes a visible condition. The second describes an action.

Ng in Filipino is pronounced as a single sound like the ng in sing.

So:

• ng aplikante

is roughly pronounced like nang aplikante in connected speech, not like the English word ngee or a separate n-g.

This is important because Filipino ng is very common and has its own pronunciation.

A helpful breakdown is:

• May = there is / there are
• luha = tear / tears
• sa mata = in the eye(s)
• ng aplikante = of the applicant / the applicant’s

So the structure is basically:

There are tears in the applicant’s eyes.

That is often the easiest way to understand how the Filipino sentence is put together.