May ubo rin si Lola, pero gusto pa rin niyang uminom ng tsaa.

Here, may means there is/has. In natural English, May ubo si Lola is best understood as Grandma has a cough.

Filipino often uses may to express that someone has something:

• May pera siya. = He/She has money.
• May sakit ako. = I have an illness / I’m sick.

So May ubo si Lola literally feels like There is cough with Grandma, but the natural translation is Grandma has a cough.

Ubo is a noun here: cough.

So:

• May ubo si Lola. = Grandma has a cough.

If you use umuuubo or umuubo, that would describe the action of coughing:

• Umuuubo si Lola. = Grandma is coughing.

So the sentence is talking about her condition or symptom, not the action itself.

Rin and din both usually mean also, too, or sometimes as well.

In this sentence:

• May ubo rin si Lola = Grandma also has a cough

Why rin and not din?
This is mostly a sound rule:

• Use rin after words ending in a vowel, w, or y
• Use din after most other consonants

Since ubo ends in a vowel, rin sounds more natural:

• ubo rin
• not usually ubo din

This is a very common alternation in Filipino.

Si is the personal name marker. It is used with people’s names and with kinship terms when they are being used like names.

So:

• si Lola
• si Maria
• si Kuya
• si Nanay

Here, Lola means Grandma, but it is being used as a way of referring to a specific person, almost like a name. That is why si is used.

By contrast, ang is a more general marker and is not normally used the same way for personal names.

Pa rin means still or nevertheless/still depending on context.

In this sentence:

• pero gusto pa rin niyang uminom ng tsaa
• but she still wants to drink tea

The idea is that even though Grandma has a cough, her desire has not changed.

A few examples:

• Pagod siya, pero nagtrabaho pa rin siya. = He/She was tired, but still worked.
• Umuulan, pero lalabas pa rin kami. = It’s raining, but we’re still going out.

So pa rin often adds the sense of despite that, still.

Yes, niyang is a combined form. It comes from:

• niya = his/her
• plus the linker -ng

So:

• niya + -ng = niyang

In this sentence:

• gusto pa rin niyang uminom
• literally: he/she still wants to drink

The -ng links niya to the following word uminom.

This kind of linker is very common in Filipino. You will often see forms like:

• maganda + -ng + bahay → magandang bahay
• siya + na → siya na
• niya + -ng → niyang

Also, niya is gender-neutral. It can mean his or her, so niyang here means his/her depending on context. Since Lola is Grandma, we understand it as her.

This is a very common question. After gusto, Filipino often uses a pronoun form like ko, mo, niya, namin, ninyo, nila to show who is doing the wanting.

So:

• Gusto ko = I want
• Gusto mo = You want
• Gusto niya = He/She wants

Even though niya is often taught as his/her, after gusto it functions in a pattern that English speakers translate as the subject:

• Gusto niya ng tsaa. = She wants tea.

So in gusto pa rin niyang uminom, the meaning is simply she still wants to drink.

Uminom means to drink.

It comes from the root word:

• inom = drink

Then the infix -um- is inserted after the first consonant:

• inom → uminom

This -um- verb form is very common in Filipino and often marks actor-focus verbs.

Examples:

• kain → kumain = to eat
• alis → umalis = to leave
• inom → uminom = to drink

So gusto niyang uminom means she wants to drink.

Ng marks the object of the verb in many Filipino sentences.

So in:

• uminom ng tsaa

the ng marks tsaa as the thing being drunk:

• drink tea

Other examples:

• kumain ng tinapay = eat bread
• bumili ng libro = buy a book
• uminom ng tubig = drink water

So ng tsaa means tea as the object of uminom.

Both are possible, but May ubo rin si Lola is a very natural, common Filipino word order.

Filipino often puts the predicate first. So instead of starting with the subject, it often starts with the descriptive part or main idea:

• May ubo rin si Lola.
• literally something like Has a cough too Grandma
• natural English: Grandma also has a cough.

You could also say:

• Si Lola ay may ubo rin.

That is grammatically fine, but it can sound a bit more formal, deliberate, or textbook-like depending on context.

So the sentence uses a very natural spoken pattern.

It follows a very useful pattern:

• gusto + pronoun + infinitive verb + object

Here:

• gusto = want
• pa rin = still
• niyang = she/he + linker
• uminom = to drink
• ng tsaa = tea

So the pattern gives:

• gusto pa rin niyang uminom ng tsaa
• she still wants to drink tea

You can reuse this structure with many verbs:

• Gusto kong kumain. = I want to eat.
• Gusto mong matulog. = You want to sleep.
• Gusto nilang umalis. = They want to leave.

This is one of the most useful sentence patterns in everyday Filipino.

Yes, pero is a very common everyday word for but.

In this sentence:

• May ubo rin si Lola, pero gusto pa rin niyang uminom ng tsaa.
• Grandma also has a cough, but she still wants to drink tea.

You may also see ngunit, which also means but, but ngunit often sounds more formal or literary.

So:

• pero = common, conversational
• ngunit = more formal

For ordinary speech, pero is extremely common.