When to use it
Use it at a pharmacy in the Philippines to check whether a medicine is sold without a prescription.
The sentence in English: “Can I buy medicine without a prescription?”
In “Can I buy medicine without a prescription?” ‘Can’ moves before ‘I’; ‘without’ is a preposition before ‘a prescription’.
- Can
- auxiliary verbcan · tense: present · modal verb of ability or permission; it opens the question
- I
- pronounpersonal pronoun, always written with a capital letter
- buy
- verbbuy · form: base form (infinitive without "to") · main verb after "can"
- medicine
- noununcountable noun here, used in a general sense
- without
- prepositionpreposition
- a
- determinerindefinite article
- prescription
- nounnoun; a doctor's written order for medicine
The sentence in Filipino: “Puwede bang bumili ng gamot nang walang reseta?”
In “Puwede bang bumili ng gamot nang walang reseta?” no person is named, so it asks a general rule. ‘bumili’ is ‘bili’ (buy) with the actor-focus infix ‘um’, ‘ng’ introduces the object ‘gamot’ (medicine), and ‘nang walang’ (without) gives the manner.
- Puwede
- adjective'can, possible'
- bang
- particlequestion particle ba + linker
- bumili
- verbbili · focus: actor (um-) · aspect: infinitive · um- + bili 'to buy'; no buyer named
- ng
- prepositionmarker ng before the object
- gamot
- nounnoun 'medicine'
- nang
- prepositionnang introducing manner: 'without a prescription'
- walang
- adjectivewala + linker -ng: 'without'
- reseta
- nounnoun 'prescription', from Spanish receta
What changes from one language to the other: English × Filipino
English asks about ‘I’, Filipino asks in general. English ‘without’ is one word; Filipino uses ‘nang walang’, and the spelling ‘ng’ (object) differs from ‘nang’ (manner).
Example conversation
— Puwede bang bumili ng gamot nang walang reseta?
— Can I buy medicine without a prescription?
— Para rito, oo. Pero kailangan ng reseta sa antibiotic.
— For this one, yes. For antibiotics you need one.