Kailangan nating hintayin ang pamilya kapag mahaba ang pila.

to be

Breakdown of Kailangan nating hintayin ang pamilya kapag mahaba ang pila.

• pamilya: the family
• kapag: when
• kailangan: to need

Questions & Answers about Kailangan nating hintayin ang pamilya kapag mahaba ang pila.

Why does the sentence start with Kailangan?

Kailangan means necessary or need to. In Filipino, it often works as the main predicate of the sentence, so it commonly comes first.

A very common pattern is:

Kailangan + pronoun/noun + verb

So Kailangan nating hintayin... is literally something like It is necessary for us to wait..., which naturally becomes We need to wait... in English.

Why is it nating and not natin?

Nating is the linked form of natin.

• natin = our / us, including the person you are speaking to
• nating = the same word, but with a linker before the next word

So in Kailangan nating hintayin, the -ng links natin to hintayin.

You can think of it as:

• natin = basic form
• nating = form used when it directly connects to the next word

Why not use namin instead of natin?