One thing about tagalog that's hard to understand from an only e

@matthewreichle The first example:
"Kumain ako ng pagkain." - I ate food. ( Explains that you ate food because you are hungry or you need to.
If you say, "Kumain ako ng pagkain sa kusina/restawran/fiesta/birthday party. "
"I ate food in the kitchen/restaurant/fiesta. (explains that you ate in a place because you were hungry and needed to eat.***Here the subject is "Ako"/You"
*** It answers the question, Where, when, when - Saan, Bakit, Kailan
Where did you eat? - Saan ka kumain?
Why did you eat? Bakit ka kumain?
When did you eat? Kailan ka kumain?2nd example:
"Kinain ko ang pagkain." - I ate the food. ( Explains that you ate the food maybe because you just want to or you need to.)
If you say, "Kinain ko ang pagkain sa mesa." - I ate the food on the table. (Explains you ate the food on the table that might be yours or not yours. You are telling someone that you were the one who ate it or you ate it without permission) Another example: " Kinain ko ang pagkain na ginawa mo para sa akin." - "I ate the food you make for me." ( you are expressing appreciation to the person who prepared the food)*** Here the subject is food/pagkain.
****It answers the question " who/sino - " Who ate the food?" -" Sino ang kumain ng pagkain?"For the Magbigay ang Bigyan:"Magbigay ka niyan sa atin - Give me that." ( more polite to ask, to give you something)
"Magbigay ka nyan sa akin. (Order or command when the speaker is an adult or superior) ***Polite way to say with colleagues or friends."Bigyan mo ako niyan" - Give me that! (more on commanding, direct order for you to give that thing)
" Bigyan mo ako nyan! - (not polite to use when you speak with your superior or elderly)
(can be used casually with peers with same age or close friends) * It is normally used by the kids. (Add "Paki" to make the phrase polite) ' "Paki bigyan mo ako niyan." Please, give me that.
**** Can be used by/for General speaker/listener)Note:
I consulted my personal Filipino Tutor because I was also confused.
I hope this helps you too.

@AkoSiMaganda thank you, that helps quite a bit

@matthewreichle
You are not alone, I'd say that Actor/Object/Other focuses are the #1 biggest hurdle for new language students.Another thing to note is that the Object focus verb is often specific about the object, and the actor focus version is not.For example...
Uminom ako ng tubig. = I drank some water.
Ininom ko ang tubig. = I drank the water. (for example, the water sitting on the desk right there...)

Took me two years to finally have the locative -an style verbs click. the i- benefactive forms are so much more english like (complete with preposition).Ilagay mo ang tubig sa ref.Lagyan ng tubig ang ref.

We have a similar concept in English - active and passive. Shakespeare wrote Hamlet'' is the same as Hamlet was written by Shakespeare''.
I tend to think of um and mag verbs as active and in verbs as passive. Doing this will also get the pronouns and the ang / ng right. But Tagalog definitely uses the 'passive' more than we do in English. You can even give commands in the passive which we can't in English.

@matthewreichle Indeed who would know?

@AkoSiMaganda Excellent

My reactions are shaped by having the time in Manila the past nine months to ask many Tagalogs specifics about our daily interactions... "Anong nangyari" drives so many of the conversations..."What happened here..." or "Update me here...how did we get to this" Situation driven...what has changed in the situation.For example...
.
"Anong nangyari ang pagkain?"as in...food focus"Kinain ko ang pagkain." for "The food (focus of questioner) got eaten by me" or "I was the one to eat the food"Compared with for example....Anong ginagawa mo?as in...me as the focus"Kumain ako ng pagkain." for "I ate something (food)"I notice we tend to talk about situations...rather than about people muna. So object focus...how things change in our place is the main default....rather than actor focus. If I feel the eyes on me...or we are in chizzmizzzz mode...or a specific reason...I lead with people focus.So my limited insight...rather than thinking about your sentence as a declaration.Think...anong nangyariRESPOND...to the NEXT question == asked or unasked == in describing your joint experience..AND the focus...just FLOWS.."Ano ang ginagawa mo?

> "Anong nangyari ang pagkain?"the ang here should be sa, the pagkain is in the oblique case

I'd just add my two cents that...I think the English equivalent "active" vs "passive" analogy is often not really helpful...the concepts don't map one-to-one to actor vs object focus.The passive voice in English has a connotation that just doesn't carry the same way in Tagalog...I'll quote @Tagamanila from a while ago, referring to a sentence using an object focus verb:"Note though that although the structural translation of the sentence with an object-focus verb comes out in the passive voice in English, to us it is just like how it is in the active voice with only a change in the verb used."...and again here..."We, native-speakers of Filipino, are not "burdened" though by having to translate our thoughts in English. We don't think in terms of the active or passive voice. Notice that my translations of the "naglaba" and "nilabhan" sentences are the same - I washed my clothes. As far as we are concerned, we just know that should we decide to use "naglaba" we use "ako" and should the choice be "nilabhan", we use "ko". To us, we know that we are saying the same thing, just using a different verb form for each sentence. So, either way, both mean "I washed my clothes" to us. "These comments by Tagamanila ring true to me, based on my experience reading and hearing Tagalog. Just some food for thought.

@TLDCAdmin This is just because explicit =/= implicit knowledge. Its the same reason why did you eat vs have you eaten mean different things to an English speaker (other than rural North Americans who haven't developed the aspect distinction). Its why English teachers must undergo further training to properly explain the language (explicit knowledge). I ran into this with an L1 Filipino teacher. He teaches Filipino (Tagalog) to Pinoys and is grossly unequipped to teach Tagalog as a second language. Generally actor focus can also imply habitualness of an action (not always, sometimes the distinction is based on if its an or a mag- verb form (lumakad vs maglakad) but generally it seems).I'll quote a discussion I had with Alvin who is an admin on the Tagalog for Indonesian/Malaysians FB page and a mod on my discord.media.discordapp.net /attachments/6451083 81014687744/67213190 7714285578/unknmedia.discordapp.net /attachments/6451083 81014687744/67213206 5520648223/unkn~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~And to wrap it up, for me a seasoned two~three year resident of the PH. Case markers (ang, ng, sa) are a problem. As we saw earlier where Bora Mac mixed up ang and sa. I've noticed that with other beginners on the discord is that when ang is contracted (such as in anong) it can really throw off the rest of the sentence because which word gets which case marker is suddenly obscured. Ano ang nangyari ang XYZ if we decompress it and suddenly it sounds much more awkward. Doesn't help that a full colloquial reduction would be nyari for ano ang nangyari.Case markers and more advanced derived forms give an intermediate learner much more of a headache IMHO than the actor/object focus.

It helps me to think of it like this - To do Tagalog "focus" in English verbally, you emphasize the focus of your sentence, ie you say it louder and slower. To do it in written form, you italicize. I think that essentially captures it. There's no grammar for it.

I think it is easier to understand the actor vs object focus if we frame it interrogatively.Kumain ako ng pagkain answers the question "What did you do for lunch". The focus is what I did.Kinain ko ang pagkain answers the question "Anong ginawa mo sa pagkain?". The focus is what was done to the food.If you use Kinain for the "What did you do for lunch", it sounds like that you ate lunch(the time).

@Bituingmaykinang I mean, "What did you do with the food?"