Totoo ang kuwento.

subject/topic marker

Breakdown of Totoo ang kuwento.

• kuwento: story
• totoo: true; real

Questions & Answers about Totoo ang kuwento.

Why does the sentence start with totoo instead of ang kuwento?

Because in Filipino, the predicate often comes first.

So Totoo ang kuwento follows a very common pattern:

predicate + ang-marked topic

Here:

• totoo = the predicate
• ang kuwento = the topic

So even though English usually says The story is true, Filipino commonly says the equivalent of True is the story in structure.

You can also say:

Ang kuwento ay totoo.

That has the same basic meaning, but it feels a bit more explicitly like The story is true.

What does ang mean here?

Ang is a marker, not exactly the English word the.

In this sentence, ang marks kuwento as the topic/focus of the sentence.

So in Totoo ang kuwento:

• ang kuwento = the story, as the topic being talked about

It is often convenient to translate ang as the, but grammatically it does more than that. It shows which noun is the main topic of the sentence.

Why is there no word for is?