Isara mo ang gripo pagkatapos mong maghugas ng kamay.

Isara comes from the root sara, meaning close. In this sentence, it is being used as a command: Close the faucet.

This form is very natural when the focus is on the thing being closed, which is ang gripo. So Isara mo ang gripo is the normal way to say Close the faucet.

You may also hear isarado in everyday speech, but isara is a very common standard form.

Mo means you in a form commonly used after verbs in Filipino.

In command sentences like this, short pronouns often come right after the verb:

• Isara mo = You close it / Close it
• Buksan mo = Open it
• Kunin mo = Get it

So mo is not random here. It marks the person being told to do the action.

Because isara is a form where the thing affected by the action is marked with ang.

Here, the thing being closed is the faucet, so we get:

• isara mo ang gripo

This is a very important Filipino pattern: the verb form and the marker on the noun work together.

In other words:

• isara points to the object being the main thing talked about
• therefore that object is marked by ang

So ang gripo is correct here.

Yes. Gripo means faucet or tap.

So:

• Isara mo ang gripo can mean Close the faucet
• in natural English, that may also be Turn off the tap

Filipino often uses close with things like faucets, where English often says turn off.

Pagkatapos means after or afterward.

In this sentence, it introduces the time relationship:

• pagkatapos mong maghugas ng kamay = after you wash your hands

So it connects the two actions:

1. wash your hands
2. then close the faucet

It works much like English after.

Mong is mo plus the linker -ng.

This happens very often in Filipino. When a word like mo connects smoothly to the next word, it can take -ng:

• mo + -ng = mong

So:

• pagkatapos mong maghugas

This is the normal and standard form here.

You can think of it as helping connect you to the following action:

• after you wash your hands

After pagkatapos, Filipino often uses a more neutral or non-completed verb form like maghugas to mean to wash / washing in an after-clause.

So:

• pagkatapos mong maghugas = after you wash / after washing

Why not naghugas?

• naghugas is a completed or past-type form, more like washed
• after pagkatapos, maghugas is the more natural structure here

Why not hugasan?

• hugasan would shift the focus differently and would not fit this sentence as naturally

So pagkatapos mong maghugas ng kamay is the standard, natural phrasing.

Because maghugas is an actor-focused verb here, and with this kind of verb, the thing being washed is usually marked with ng.

So:

• maghugas ng kamay = wash hands / wash the hands

This matches a very common Filipino pattern:

• actor-focused verb
• object marked by ng

That is why ng kamay is used.

This is a very common thing in Filipino. Body-part nouns are often left singular even when English would naturally use a plural.

So:

• maghugas ng kamay naturally means wash your hands

Even though kamay literally looks singular, the phrase is idiomatic and normal. Filipino does not always match English number word-for-word.

If you said mga kamay, it would sound more explicitly plural, but in this everyday expression, kamay is the usual choice.

Yes. You can also say:

Pagkatapos mong maghugas ng kamay, isara mo ang gripo.

That means the same thing:

• After you wash your hands, close the faucet.

Both orders are natural. The original version puts the command first, while this version puts the time clause first.

A polite singular version can include po:

Isara mo po ang gripo pagkatapos mong maghugas ng kamay.

A more polite or plural version can use ninyo:

Isara ninyo ang gripo pagkatapos ninyong maghugas ng kamay.

You could also turn it into a softer request with paki-:

Pakisara ang gripo pagkatapos mong maghugas ng kamay.

So the basic sentence is fine, but Filipino has easy ways to make it sound more polite or respectful.