Twelve question words, and the distinctions English throws away
Questions are how a learner gets unstuck. Once you can ask "what is this?", "how much?" and "where is it?", every conversation becomes a chance to learn rather than a test you might fail.
| Kapampangan | English | Example |
|---|---|---|
| nanu | what | Nanu ini? — What is this? |
| ninu | who | Ninu i Jennifer? — Who is Jennifer? |
| nukarin | where | Nukarin ya i Henry? — Where is Henry? |
| kapilan | when | Kapilan ya ing pista? — When is the fiesta? |
| obakit | why | Obakit ati ka keni? — Why are you here? |
| kaninu | whose, to whom | Kaninung kalikubak ini? — Whose dandruff is this? |
| makananu | how | Makananu iti gawan? — How is this done? |
| pilan | how many | Pilan a kapaya? — How many papayas? |
| magkanu | how much (price) | Magkanu ya ini? — How much is this? |
| nuanti | to what degree | Nuanti ka kalagu? — How beautiful you are! |
| isanu | which | Isanu deti ing buri mu? — Which of these do you want? |
| komusta | how is…? | Komusta ka? — How are you? |
You will hear obakit, and you will also hear the shorter obat and ot. Forman's grammar records all of obat, ot and bakit as Kapampangan words for "why".
So bakit is not a Tagalog intruder to be avoided — it is genuinely part of the Kapampangan inventory. Use whichever you hear around you; obakit is the form least likely to be mistaken for Tagalog, which is why this course leads with it.
If you learn five today, learn these. They will carry you through almost any practical situation.
Nanu ini? — What is this?
The single most productive sentence for a beginner. Point, ask, learn a word.
Nukarin ya ing ___? — Where is the ___?
Nukarin ya ing drayber? — Where is the driver?
Magkanu ya ini? — How much is this?
The market sentence. Lesson 18 builds a whole transaction around it.
Nanu ya ing buri mu? — What do you want?
And its mirror, Nanu ya ing gagawan mu? — What are you doing?
Komusta ka? — How are you?
From lesson 2, still doing more work than any other phrase you know.
Notice how often ya appears. The agreement rule from lesson 4 applies to questions exactly as it does to statements.
English says "how much" for both quantity and price. Kapampangan does not.
| pilan | counts things | Pilan a kapaya? — How many papayas? |
| magkanu | asks a price | Magkanu ya ing tinape? — How much is the bread? |
Both translate as "how", but they ask different things.
| makananu | by what method | Makananu meng gewa ita? — How did you do that? |
| nuanti | to what degree | Nuanti ya karagul? — How big is it? |
Nukarin asks where a person or object is. It is not used to ask where an action takes place.
Nukarin ya ing drayber? ✔ — Where is the driver?
The simplest yes-or-no question is a statement with rising intonation. But Kapampangan also has a particle: wari.
Malyari ku waring lumwal? — May I go out?
Mangabayatan ka? — Is it heavy?
Akakit me? — Do you see him?
Wari is roughly Tagalog's ba, though not an exact match. Two other particles do related work:
| Particle | Effect |
|---|---|
| wari | marks a question |
| kaya | "I wonder", "how about" — Tsa kaya? "How about tea?" |
| yata / ata | "probably, it seems" — softens a claim |
Remember from lesson 5 that speakers tend to avoid fusing pronouns in questions. So you will hear Akakit me? but also plenty of unfused forms in interrogatives where a statement would fuse them.
Answers to obakit generally lead with a cause word:
| Kapampangan | English |
|---|---|
| kasi | because |
| uli ning | because of |
— Obakit ati ka keni? Why are you here?
— Kasi bisa kung mangan. Because I want to eat.
And when you cannot answer, lesson 13 already gave you the sentence: E ku balu.
Do question words always come first? Overwhelmingly yes — the question word takes the front of the sentence, and the pronoun follows immediately.
What if I use bakit by mistake? You will be understood everywhere in Pampanga, because everyone speaks Tagalog too. But you will be understood as a Tagalog speaker, which rather defeats the purpose.
Is nuanti really common? Less so than the others, but Nuanti ka kalagu? is a well-known compliment and worth recognising.
Every other lesson in this course teaches you to say things. This one teaches you to find out things — which means it is the lesson that keeps working after the course ends. Nanu ini? is a vocabulary-acquisition engine you can carry into any conversation in Pampanga.
Next: Describing Things — adjectives, colours, and the little linker that has been quietly appearing since lesson 2.