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Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4146 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog
| Message 1 of 9 05 October 2013 at 1:30pm | IP Logged |
I would like to learn Tagalog. I'm going to start in the spring, since right now I'm completely immersed in
learning Spanish. But I'd like to start finding materials now, so that I can hit the ground running when I come
back from Spain in April.
My problem is that very few programs seem to teach the "real" Tagalog. I was planning on starting with Pimsleur,
just to get a grounding, but it appears that it might teach me a stilted and unnatural way of speaking. I tried the
sample lesson online.
Me: *repeating along happily*
Husband: Nobody talks like that.
Me: No, but look! It's Conversational Tagalog. See!
Husband: ...
Me: There are half-hour lessons! All audio! I can practice every day!
Husband: ...
Me: It'll be awesome!
Husband: Nobody talks like that.
So much for Pimsleur.
Reviews of Tagalog materials are few and far between, but it seems as though the Living Languages Spoken
World Tagalog has the same problems as Pimsleur.
I know that Tagalog is changing very quickly and that there isn't all that much interest in learning it as a foreign
language. But I need a starting point, just something that will help me get the basics down.
Here's what I'll have access to:
- a husband for conversation practice (although he's useless as a teacher, he'll be more than happy to help me
practice what I've learned on my own)
- a tutor on italki (I'll try several until I find one that I mesh well with, and then I'll aim for three conversational
lessons per week)
- "Tara, Mag-Tagalog Tayo!", a textbook and workbook with good reviews (and husband-approved
vocab/dialogues) but limited audio (not very many dialogues - I'll definitely need more audio)
- anki - I'll make my own decks as I go
Tara,
Mag-
Tagalog Tayo
Here's what I'm still looking for:
- some audio-only resources that I can use during my daily one-hour walks. Right now for Spanish I'm using FSI,
but I know enough Spanish to be able to make judgement calls on whether or not something is useful - or
whether it's way too 1960s for my needs. I'm almost positive that the FSI Tagalog course from the 60s is next to
worthless for my needs.
- some accessible native materials - podcasts, comics, music, TV shows
- any kind of systematic teaching/learning program that will help me grasp Tagalog's grammar - I know that it's
really quite complex and very different from anything that I've learned so far.
My goal is conversational fluency. I doubt that I'll ever read novels in Tagalog, and I don't really need to write
(aside from writing as a tool to help me learn to speak better). I'd like to be able to understand the news, talk to
my in-laws, and be able to participate fully in conversations with multiple speakers.
Thanks for any suggestions or advice!
Edited by Stelle on 05 October 2013 at 1:36pm
2 persons have voted this message useful
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4709 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish
| Message 2 of 9 05 October 2013 at 5:36pm | IP Logged |
The problem with Tagalog is that the Pinoy speak Taglish more often than they do Tagalog
pure. So just go with the flow and speak Taglish with them. Gradually wean yourself off
of the English, though... and if common sense tells you that Pilipinos use an English
word where they could use a native Tagalog equivalent - just go with the English.
There is a Teach Yourself Tagalog out there and some other resources, but the FSI course
is pretty old (not the 60s though as I remember, more like late 80s?). I considered
studying Tagalog myself actually.
1 person has voted this message useful
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4146 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog
| Message 3 of 9 05 October 2013 at 7:35pm | IP Logged |
tarvos wrote:
The problem with Tagalog is that the Pinoy speak Taglish more often than they do Tagalog
pure. So just go with the flow and speak Taglish with them. Gradually wean yourself off
of the English, though... and if common sense tells you that Pilipinos use an English
word where they could use a native Tagalog equivalent - just go with the English.
There is a Teach Yourself Tagalog out there and some other resources, but the FSI course
is pretty old (not the 60s though as I remember, more like late 80s?). I considered
studying Tagalog myself actually. |
|
|
Thanks Tarvos! Yes, I know that there's a lot of Taglish - so I guess that when I say that I want to learn
"conversational Tagalog", I basically mean that I want to have a solid enough grasp of tagalog to fully participate
in a code-switching group conversation. My husband and his siblings (who all grew up in Manila and moved here
as adults) code-switch constantly. Their parents (in their 70s) don't code-switch. They either speak Tagalog or
(most often when I'm in the room) use only English.
I think that the problem with a lot of "learn Tagalog" resources is that they teach a very formal Tagalog which is
rarely used in the real world. I'll take a look at the Teach Yourself course and ask my husband what he thinks.
If you decide to study Tagalog, let me know! I'd love a language buddy. I know I'm ahead of myself here, but I'm
thinking that I'll start during next May's six-week challenge.
Edited by Stelle on 05 October 2013 at 7:35pm
1 person has voted this message useful
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4709 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish
| Message 4 of 9 07 October 2013 at 12:18pm | IP Logged |
Yeah, I would but I have enough on my plate with Korean right now. Tagalog will have to
wait :(
1 person has voted this message useful
| alang Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 7223 days ago 563 posts - 757 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish
| Message 5 of 9 23 October 2013 at 7:51pm | IP Logged |
@ Stelle,
You could look into a program called "Learning Tagalog".
Presumably it uses real life dialogues and what a person would encounter.
The male author in his description on Amazon speaks: Dutch, English, German, French,
Japanese and of course Tagalog.
Here
1 person has voted this message useful
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4146 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog
| Message 6 of 9 23 October 2013 at 10:00pm | IP Logged |
alang wrote:
@ Stelle,
You could look into a program called "Learning Tagalog".
Presumably it uses real life dialogues and what a person would encounter.
The male author in his description on Amazon speaks: Dutch, English, German, French,
Japanese and of course Tagalog.
Here |
|
|
Thanks for the suggestion! It's a bit pricey, but I'll keep it in mind if I don't find something else that works for me.
1 person has voted this message useful
| beanie Newbie Australia Joined 4766 days ago 35 posts - 50 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog
| Message 7 of 9 04 November 2013 at 11:23pm | IP Logged |
I learned a lot from Learning Tagalog. I looked for material high and low...and this was
the best that I found.
I also found Pimsleur to be a bit silly and gave up on it. Having spent nearly 2 years in
Manila I still haven't heard anyone speak Tagalog like they do on Pimsleur ;)
Mark
2 persons have voted this message useful
| BaronBill Triglot Senior Member United States HowToLanguages.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4691 days ago 335 posts - 594 votes Speaks: English*, French, German Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Persian
| Message 8 of 9 05 November 2013 at 12:51am | IP Logged |
I've recently purchased Basic Tagalog and I think it looks pretty good. It says there are about 2000 vocab words and claims to teach "conversational" Tagalog. I'm looking to get into Tagalog sometime next year (March or April-ish) so I'm gathering some resources so that I can jump right in.
Edited by BaronBill on 05 November 2013 at 12:52am
1 person has voted this message useful
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