# Marunong



## Inglip

This may not be spelt correctly, because it is from an audible source. But it says "Maroonong ako" means "I understand". 

I thought maroon means to own. Perhaps it is just how they pronounce it in the source, but what does it mean? and what is the correct spelling?

Some of the other phrases using this word are:

Maroonong kang mag tagalog - You know how to speak tagalog
Maroonong ako ng kaunti ng tagalog - I know a little tagalog
Hindi ako maroono - I don't know how.

Not to be confused with Intindi, because the source uses that as well.

Thanks


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## Salbahe

Marunong is the word you are thinking of.  It means "to know how to" or "to be able to."

Marunong kang mag-Tagalog.  You know how to speak Tagalog.

Mayroon is the other word I think you are getting it confused with, which is the long form of May.

May libro ka?  Oo, mayroon.
Do you have the book?  Yes, I have it.


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## Salbahe

I looked into the word a little more, just for kicks.  I guess the root is dunong, which means knowledge or wisdom.  So even in the middle of a verb with affixes, that d sometimes still needs to be changed to an r.  It also appears that you can use marunong as an adjective to mean knowledgeable or intelligent.  I would be interested to hear from a native speaker if the word is ever used that way in practice.  To this point, I've only seen it used as a verb.


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## Inglip

Thanks for the help.

marunong is in my book as intelligent. It does have some old words in it, perhaps it's an old word.


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## DotterKat

_Marunong_ is not an old word and is very much in colloquial usage. It can mean either being intelligent or being in possession of a skill to do something, as indicated above. As such, you can think of it in terms of being _knowledgeable_, that is the quality of either being globally well informed about a lot of things or specific familiarity with a particular skill or field of study, etc.


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## Inglip

Thanks for cleaning that up.


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