Breakdown of Nasa loob ng ospital ang pamilya niya upang bisitahin ang lola nilang may sakit.
Questions & Answers about Nasa loob ng ospital ang pamilya niya upang bisitahin ang lola nilang may sakit.
Sa is the basic location/indirect object marker: “at / in / to.”
Nasa is used specifically for stating where something is located right now.
- Sa ospital = “at the hospital / to the hospital” (more general, often used with a verb: Pupunta sila sa ospital – They will go to the hospital.)
- Nasa ospital = “is/are at the hospital” (focus on current position: Siya ay nasa ospital – He/She is at the hospital.)
- Nasa loob ng ospital = “is/are inside the hospital” (adds loob = “inside”).
So nasa already contains the idea of “is located at,” which is why you don’t add another “to be” verb; you don’t say “ay nasa is at” in normal speech, you just use nasa (+ location) + ang-phrase (the thing that’s located there).
Ang and ng are core markers in Filipino:
- Ang marks the topic/subject (the main focused noun in the clause).
- Ng often marks:
- a non-topic object, or
- a possessor (“of”), or
- a description (“of”) after another noun.
In the sentence:
Nasa loob ng ospital
- ng ospital = “of the hospital”
- Here ng links loob (inside) and ospital (hospital): inside *of the hospital*.
ang pamilya niya
- ang marks pamilya as the topic/subject of the main clause:
“The family (his/her family) is inside the hospital…”
- ang marks pamilya as the topic/subject of the main clause:
ang lola nilang may sakit
- Again, ang marks lola (grandmother) as the object/topic of bisitahin (to visit):
“to visit the grandmother of them who is sick.”
- Again, ang marks lola (grandmother) as the object/topic of bisitahin (to visit):
So:
- ang X → “the X” as topic/focus
- ng X → “of X” / X as non-topic (possessor, object, or complement)
Both word orders are grammatical; they just differ in style and focus.
Nasa loob ng ospital ang pamilya niya.
- Starts with the location phrase.
- Natural in Filipino for “locative” sentences: place first, then who/what is there.
- Sounds very normal in everyday speech.
Ang pamilya niya ay nasa loob ng ospital.
- Starts with the family as topic, then describes where they are.
- Also correct; ay makes it a more “formal” or “bookish” style in many contexts.
In simple terms:
- Filipino often puts the location or state at the beginning and the ang-phrase (topic) later.
- English typically fixes the subject at the beginning, so it feels reversed to English speakers, but both Filipino orders are acceptable, with small differences in emphasis and register.
Both refer to a third-person singular possessor (his/her), but they behave differently:
Niya
- Clitic/short form.
- Usually comes after the noun it modifies.
- Example: pamilya niya = “his/her family.”
Kanya / kanyang
- Full/stressed form (kanyang before the noun, kanya standing alone).
- Kanyang pamilya = “his/her family,” with a bit more emphasis on whose family it is.
- Ang pamilya ay kanya. = “The family is his/hers.”
In the sentence, pamilya niya is the most neutral, everyday pattern:
- pamilya niya (very natural, ordinary)
- kanyang pamilya (also correct; can sound slightly more formal or emphatic in many contexts)
So pamilya niya is chosen because it’s the normal, unstressed way to say “his/her family.”
Upang introduces a purpose clause: “in order to / so as to.”
- upang bisitahin ang lola nilang may sakit
= “in order to visit their grandmother who is sick.”
You can usually replace upang with para in modern speech:
- para bisitahin ang lola nilang may sakit
Differences:
Upang
- More formal, literary, or written.
- Very common in formal writing, speeches, and older style texts.
Para
- More conversational, very widely used in speech.
- Sometimes expanded to para sa or para sa pag-… depending on structure.
In this sentence, both:
- …ang pamilya niya upang bisitahin ang lola…
- …ang pamilya niya para bisitahin ang lola…
are acceptable, with upang sounding slightly more formal or careful.
Both come from the root bisita (“visit”), but they are different verb voices:
Bumisita
- Actor-focus (AF).
- Focus on who is visiting.
- Example: Bumisita ang pamilya niya sa lola nila.
– “His/Her family visited their grandmother.” (focus on the family as actors)
Bisitahin
- Object-focus (OF), -hin form.
- Focus on the thing/person being visited (the object).
- Usually used with an ang-marked object.
- In the sentence:
upang bisitahin ang lola nilang may sakit
– literally: “in order to visit the grandmother of them who is sick.”
Because the ang-phrase ang lola nilang may sakit is the specific thing being visited and is in focus, the object-focus verb bisitahin is used instead of bumisita.
A rough pattern:
- Actor focus: Bumisita ang pamilya… sa lola…
- Object focus: Bisitahin ng pamilya… ang lola…
(Here, the original sentence omits ng pamilya because the doer is already understood from context.)
There are two different reference points:
pamilya niya
- niya = “his/her.”
- Refers to some individual third person (e.g., “Juan”):
“the family of him/her.”
lola nilang may sakit
- nila = “their.”
- Here, nila refers back to the members of the family, who are plural (they = sila).
- So lola nilang may sakit = “the grandmother of them who is sick” → “their sick grandmother.”
In English we also do something similar:
- “His family is in the hospital to visit their grandmother.”
We move from “his” (one person who has a family) to “their” (all the people in the family share the same grandmother).
Grammatically in Filipino:
- niya is the third-singular possessor.
- nila is the third-plural possessor.
- pamilya niya focuses on the one person whose family it is.
- lola nilang may sakit sees the family members as a group (sila), so we use nila.
You could theoretically use lola niyang may sakit (his/her grandmother who is sick), but nilang is more natural if you mean “the grandmother of the whole family.”
Literally:
- may = “has / there is (with possession).”
- sakit = “illness / disease / pain.”
So may sakit is literally “has illness,” but idiomatically it is:
- “is sick / is ill.”
Examples:
- May sakit siya. – “He/She is sick.”
- May ubo at sipon siya. – “He/She has cough and cold.”
- Ang lola nilang may sakit – “their grandmother who is sick / their sick grandmother.”
So in this sentence, may sakit is functioning like an adjectival phrase attached to lola:
- ang lola nilang may sakit
= “the grandmother of them who is sick.”
Both ang lola nilang may sakit and ang may sakit nilang lola are grammatically possible, but they differ in emphasis:
ang lola nilang may sakit
- Noun lola comes first.
- Followed by nilang may sakit (“of them + who is sick”).
- Feels like: “their grandmother who is sick” – neutral, very common.
ang may sakit nilang lola
- Start with may sakit as the descriptive core: “their sick grandmother.”
- Slightly stronger focus on her being sick; could sound a bit more descriptive/contrastive, depending on context.
General pattern:
- Attributive words (adjectives, descriptive phrases) usually follow the noun:
- ang lola kong mabait – “my kind grandmother”
- ang kaibigan kong doktor – “my friend who is a doctor”
- ang lola nilang may sakit – “their grandmother who is sick.”
But Filipino is flexible, and you can sometimes invert for emphasis, as in ang may sakit nilang lola, especially in more literary or careful speech.
Yes. Here are a few natural variants, all meaning roughly “His/Her family is inside the hospital to visit their sick grandmother”:
Ang pamilya niya ay nasa loob ng ospital para bisitahin ang lola nilang may sakit.
- Uses ay construction and para instead of upang.
Nasa ospital ang pamilya niya para dalawin ang lola nilang may sakit.
- Drops loob (“inside”), just “at the hospital.”
- Uses dalawin (another object-focus verb “to visit [a person]”) instead of bisitahin.
Nasa loob ng ospital ang pamilya niya para dalawin ang may sakit nilang lola.
- Slightly different word order around may sakit, but still natural.
All of these are acceptable; the original sentence is just one idiomatic way to express the idea.