When to use it
Use it at an airport to ask staff to help you find your boarding gate.
“Can you help me find my gate?” — The sentence in English
In “Can you help me find my gate?” ‘help’ is followed by ‘me’ and ‘find’ without ‘to’; ‘my’ comes before the noun.
- Can
- auxiliary verbcan · tense: present · modal verb of ability or permission; it opens the question
- you
- pronounpersonal pronoun
- help
- verbhelp · form: base form (infinitive without "to") · main verb after "can"
- me
- pronounobject pronoun
- find
- verbfind · form: base form (infinitive without "to") · main verb after a modal or after "help me"
- my
- determinerpossessive determiner
- gate
- nounnoun; the boarding gate at an airport
“Puwede po ba ninyo akong tulungang hanapin ang gate ko?” — The sentence in Filipino
In “Puwede po ba ninyo akong tulungang hanapin ang gate ko?” politeness comes from ‘po’ and the plural ‘ninyo’ used for one person. The two verbs ‘tulungang’ (help) and ‘hanapin’ (find) are joined by the linker ‘-ng’, and ‘ko’ (my) comes after ‘gate’.
- Puwede
- adjective'can'
- po
- particlepoliteness particle
- ba
- particlequestion particle
- ninyo
- pronounpolite plural 'you', the doer
- akong
- pronounako 'me' + linker -ng
- tulungang
- verbtulong · focus: object (-an) · form: infinitive · tulungan 'to help (someone)' + linker
- hanapin
- verbhanap · focus: object (-in) · form: infinitive · hanap + -in 'to look for (the gate)'
- ang
- prepositiontopic marker ang
- gate
- nounnoun from English
- ko
- pronoun'my', after the noun
English × Filipino: What changes from one language to the other
English puts ‘my’ before the noun; Filipino puts ‘ko’ after it. Filipino shows respect with the plural ‘ninyo’; English has nothing like it.
Example conversation
— Puwede po ba ninyo akong tulungang hanapin ang gate ko?
— Can you help me find my gate?
— Sige po, puwede ko bang makita ang boarding pass ninyo?
— Of course, may I see your boarding pass?