Breakdown of Wala siyang pera ngayon, pero bibili siya bukas kapag mura.
Questions & Answers about Wala siyang pera ngayon, pero bibili siya bukas kapag mura.
Filipino typically expresses possession with existential words:
- Positive: may or meron (there is/are; has/have)
- Example: May pera siya / Meron siyang pera = He/She has money.
- Negative: wala (there is none; doesn’t have)
- Example: Wala siyang pera = He/She has no money.
Literally, Wala siyang pera is “There is none, his/her money,” which is the natural way to say “He/She doesn’t have money.”
That -ng is the linker that connects a word to the next word it modifies or relates to. After may/meron/wala, pronouns commonly take the linker before the thing possessed:
- Wala siyang pera
- Meron akong oras
- Mayroon tayong pagkain
Linker rules:
- Word ends in a vowel: add -ng (e.g., siya → siyang)
- Ends in a consonant: use na (e.g., malaki na bahay → usually rephrased)
- Ends in n: drop n, add -ng
No, that’s ungrammatical in standard Filipino. You need the linker: Wala siyang pera.
A possible alternative is Walang pera siya, which puts the predicate walang pera first and then siya. It’s grammatical but less common than Wala siyang pera in everyday speech.
Negating may/meron with hindi is not idiomatic. Use wala for the negative:
- Correct: Wala siyang pera
- Incorrect: Hindi siya may pera
Bibili is the contemplated or future aspect of the actor-focus verb from the root bili (to buy).
- Completed (past): bumili
- Progressive (ongoing): bumibili
- Contemplated (future): bibili
Pattern: actor-focus with the -um- infix; in the future, -um- drops and the first syllable is reduplicated.
If the object is specific and you want to focus on it (buy it), use the object-focus form bibilhin:
- Bibilhin niya ito bukas kapag mura = He/She will buy this tomorrow if/when it’s cheap. Actor-focus keeps the buyer as the subject: Bibili siya bukas (He/She will buy tomorrow), without specifying a definite object.
Yes. Common options:
- Bibili siya bukas (neutral)
- Bukas siya bibili (emphasis on tomorrow)
- Siya ay bibili bukas (formal/literary inversion) Avoid odd placements like splitting the verb phrase unnaturally. Adverbs like bukas usually go at the end or at the beginning for emphasis.
- Kapag = when (time-based condition; habitual or future)
- Kung = if (conditional) In everyday speech they often overlap, so kapag mura and kung mura both sound fine here. Pag is a common shortened form of kapag: pag mura (informal).
Yes. Filipino allows predicate-initial, subject-omitted clauses when the subject is obvious from context. Kapag mura means “when it’s cheap,” with an implied subject like “it/the price.” You can make it explicit:
- Kapag mura ito
- Kapag mura ang presyo Adding na gives a “once it has become cheap” nuance: Kapag mura na.
Yes; context and stress distinguish them:
- búkas = tomorrow
- bukás = open In writing without accent marks, context resolves it. In your sentence, bukas clearly means “tomorrow.”
Use:
- ngayon when it stands alone: Wala siyang pera ngayon
- ngayong before a following word (it’s ngayon plus the linker -g): Ngayong gabi, Ngayong araw
Pero means “but/however” and is very common in conversation. More formal alternatives are ngunit and subalit:
- Wala siyang pera ngayon, ngunit bibili siya bukas…
Enclitic particles go after the first element of the clause.
- Still: Pero bibili pa rin siya bukas
- Already/by then: Pero bibili na siya bukas If you front bukas: Pero bukas pa rin siya bibili / Pero bukas na siya bibili
Your sentence uses the linker -ng attached to siya → siyang. General guide:
- ng: object/possessive marker and the linker (-ng/na)
- nang: adverbial linker (when/as/so that), before adverbs/adjectives, in some fixed expressions Don’t write nang in siyang; it’s the linker -ng.