The Most Common Tagalog Words: A Starter List with Meanings

The most common Tagalog words are small ones: ang and ng, which mark who does what in a sentence, sa (to, for), na (already; now), ko (my), hindi (no; not) and ako (I). After them come the words you’d expect in any first conversation: oo (yes), salamat (thank you), bakit (why), bahay (house), tubig (water).

This starter list takes the top words from our free Tagalog word list of 3,068 words, groups them so they’re easier to learn, and explains the particles that make Tagalog sound like Tagalog.

#Where this list comes from

The ranking comes from the OpenSubtitles 2018 frequency lists (via the FrequencyWords project), which count how often each word appears in film and TV subtitles. That makes it a list of spoken, everyday Tagalog rather than textbook Tagalog. English meanings come from Wiktionary, and any word without a Tagalog Wiktionary entry was dropped, which filters out names and stray English. What’s left is 3,068 words, all with a meaning. The data is CC BY-SA 4.0; the example sentences below are from Tatoeba.

The meanings are matched automatically, so now and then the list picks a rare sense of a common word. Where that happened in the rows below, we left the row out rather than print a misleading meaning, and we say which ones.

#The 25 most common Tagalog words

The skipped ranks: #5 mo, whose listed meaning is about letter case rather than what the word means; #11 mga, listed as “approximately; around; about”, which is not how you’ll mostly meet it; #23 alam, listed as a noun (“knowledge; learning; wisdom”); and a few more particles covered in the next section.

Notice that siya is both “he” and “she”. Tagalog pronouns don’t mark gender, which makes this corner of the grammar easier than English.

#Tagalog particles: the small words that do a lot

More than a third of the top 30 are particles or markers. The Tagalog word list page sums up why: Tagalog marks who is doing what with small particles rather than word order, and the verb changes shape to say which part of the sentence is in focus. You can’t skip these words, so it is worth meeting them early. Here they are with their listed meanings and an example sentence from the list.

A few that deserve a note:

• Ba turns a statement into a question. Aalis ka is “you’re leaving”; add ba and it’s “are you leaving?” It usually sits right after the first word or phrase.
• Po is politeness. It marks respect toward the person you’re speaking to, so you’ll use it with anyone older or anyone you don’t know. Dropping it where it’s expected sounds abrupt.
• Lang is “only” or “just”. It is the short, everyday form of lamang (#134, same meaning).
• Ang, ng, sa, si and ni are markers. Ang and ng mark the roles in the sentence, si (#19) and ni (#32, “of; possessive particle”) do the same job before people’s names, and sa covers “to” and “for”. Learn them as a set.

#“Merely”, “only” and “just” in Tagalog

People often look up “merely” in Tagalog, and the data adds a useful caveat. Our list has sukat (#765) with the meaning “just; merely; simply”. But the everyday way to say “only” or “just” is lang (#13) or its longer form lamang (#134). Sukat is far less common, and the one example sentence the list has for it uses a different sense entirely: Ito ang tamang sukat, “It’s the right size.”

So if you want to say “it’s merely a joke” or “just one”, reach for lang. See merely and just in other languages.

#Everyday Tagalog words to learn first

Salamat sayo! means “Thank you!”, and adding po makes it polite: salamat po.

#Common Tagalog nouns

#Tagalog words you may know from Spanish

The word list page notes that centuries of Spanish rule left a large loan vocabulary in Tagalog. Our similar words tool measures a strict version of that: words spelled identically and carrying the same meaning in both languages, within the 2,000 commonest words of each.

The 21 include pero (but), o (or), minuto (minute), libro (book), grupo (group), hotel, mesa (table), papel (paper), tren (train), planeta (planet), isla (island) and imposible (impossible). See all of them on Spanish and Tagalog.

The strict test misses a lot. Scan the list above and you’ll find mundo, problema and trabaho, which look Spanish but didn’t make the identical-pairs list because the spelling or the recorded meaning differs slightly, or because one side falls outside the top 2,000. If you know Spanish, you will recognize more Tagalog nouns than you might expect. The grammar, particles and verbs are another matter.

#How to learn the most common Tagalog words

Start with the 3,068 most common Tagalog words, check yourself on the Tagalog vocabulary test, and if you’d rather play, try the Tagalog word game. For how many words you need before a conversation feels comfortable, see how many words you need to be fluent.

#Practice Tagalog with a native speaker

Particles are hard to learn from a table, because whether naman or pala fits depends on the moment. That is exactly what a conversation partner teaches. On LangX, Tagalog is one of the 182 languages you can choose, and matching runs both ways: you see people who speak Tagalog and are learning a language you speak.

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#FAQ

#What is the most common word in Tagalog?

Ang, the marker for the doer or focus of the sentence. It is followed by sa (to, for), na (already; now) and ng.

#How do you say “merely” in Tagalog?

Our list has sukat (“just; merely; simply”, #765), but in everyday speech lang (#13) or lamang (#134), both meaning “only; just”, are far more common. Use lang.

#What does “po” mean in Tagalog?

Po marks respect toward the person you’re addressing. It is the 85th most common word on our list, and you add it to sentences like salamat po (thank you) when speaking to someone older or someone you don’t know.

#How many Tagalog words should I learn first?

Start with the top 100 on the list, particles included. They cover the small words you’ll hear in almost every sentence. Then work down the list and check your level with the vocabulary test.

#Does Tagalog use Spanish words?

Yes, many. By our strict test, 21 of the 2,000 most common words are spelled the same and mean the same in both, such as pero, mesa and libro, and many more are close, such as trabaho and problema.