Grammar question. Please help me understand why the pronouns are

I'm a learner as well but I will take a shot at answering this. Take with a grain of salt. Because ko and ka (and more) are enclitic (see below), and because word order doesn't actually matter as much as it does in English because the noun markers and pronouns change to denote the subject and not the word order. From LearningTagalog: In Tagalog, enclitic words are words that generally follow either the first word of the sentence or another enclitic word.The following words are enclitic: Ang personal pronouns*, i.e. ako, ka, siya, kami, tayo, kayo, sila
Ng personal pronouns, i.e. ko, mo, niya, namin, natin, ninyo, nila
the pronoun kita
the particles na, pa, man, nga’, din/rin, lang, naman, daw/raw, po’, ho’, ba, pala, kaya’, muna, tuloy, kasi, yata’, sanaRead more: learningtagalog.com/ grammar/enclitic_wor ds/overview.html

Here is the details on the actual word order ( more specific to your question): learningtagalog.com/ grammar/enclitic_wor ds/using_enclitic_wo rds/order_of_en

Ang pronouns ako, ka, siya, etc. always mark the topic (which is the object in an object focused verb and the actor in an actor focused verb)Ng pronouns ko, mo, niya, etc. always mark the non-topicHere "mahal" is object focused even without any affix - that is - "The object of one's love"I lover her...she is the object of my loveMahal ko siya She is the object of my love = ang pronoun = siya me=non-
topic=ng=koShe loves you...you are the object of her loveMahal ka niya You...ka=ang=the topic=object of her love...her=ng=niya=non-topic actor..

AMBoy's link in AMBoy's second post is a great link. I would give it five likes it I could. Again, this link specifically:learningtagalog.com/ grammar/enclitic_wor ds/using_enclitic_wo rds/order_of_enAnyway, the reason why there's the difference between "Mahal ko siya" (verb + ng pronoun + ang pronoun) vs "Mahal ka niya" (verb + ang pronoun + ng pronoun) is because the order of the pronouns is because there's a specific order for these pronouns to go in generally.You'll notice that in the table from the link above, the following is the order of the pronouns:1. All the two letter pronouns (i.e. ka, ko, and mo)
2. Then, the "ng" verbs (i.e. niya, nila, namin, natin, ninyo)
3. Then the "ang" verbs (i.e. ako, siya, kami, tayo, kayo, sila).In other words, for this specific example which is object-focus, the order is generally "verb + ng pronoun + ang pronoun", except when:a) when "ka" is used (e.g. mahal ka namin)
b) the two pronouns are "ko" and "ka" (in such a case, "kita" is used instead - e.g. mahal kita)I wouldn't be surprised if there are exceptions to this rule regarding pronoun order, so if they are please let us know!EDIT: The order of words and pronouns can get more complicated when you add things like "hindi",
"pala" and "po" in your sentences, but I think what I've said satisfies your question. Please let us know if you have any more questions.

Wow, hugely helpful. Thanks so much for taking the time to reply and help. 👍

@BoraMac Thank you. This was very helpful. I have struggled with who’s the doer and reciever and this really brought clarity for me. I’m still learning actor versus object verbs which seems to be the key here for my pronoun choice confusion. On to more studying. Thanks 👍