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How Difficult/Easy is Tagalog? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| vonPeterhof Tetraglot Senior Member Russian FederationRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4582 days ago 715 posts - 1527 votes  Speaks: Russian*, EnglishC2, Japanese, German Studies: Kazakh, Korean, Norwegian, Turkish | Message 9 of 29 11 February 2012 at 1:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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| clumsy Octoglot Senior Member Poland lang-8.com/6715Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4988 days ago 1116 posts - 1367 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Japanese, Korean, French, Mandarin, Italian, Vietnamese Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swedish Studies: Danish, Dari, Kirundi | Message 10 of 29 12 February 2012 at 9:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have tried to learn it, but failed :(
The grammar is said to be easy, but there are some things I cannot understand. Maybe when I will have a try next time, it will be more clear. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| LangOfChildren Tetraglot Groupie Germany Joined 5237 days ago 82 posts - 141 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Swedish Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Thai, Russian | Message 11 of 29 13 February 2012 at 1:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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Tagalog has one of the most interesting grammars in the world. The fact that it has the trigger system (austronesian alignment) alone is what made me want to learn it.
It's certainly different from everything else you've studied, but it's not necessarily more difficult. The sounds are very easy, and the only difficult part of the grammar are the verb conjugations and learning when to use which focus (e.g. -um- vs mag- etc). If you can get your head around that part then the rest should be easy. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| viedums Hexaglot Senior Member Thailand Joined 4476 days ago 327 posts - 528 votes Speaks: Latvian, English*, German, Mandarin, Thai, French Studies: Vietnamese | Message 12 of 29 17 February 2012 at 6:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've also heard it has an interesting grammar. I once heard John Wolff, a linguist who designed and taught courses at Cornell U. for Indonesian and Tagalog (as well as Cebuano and a few others...) make some comments on the relative difficulty of these two languages. According to him, Indonesian is easy, at least until the intermediate level, but Tagalog is harder for students to pick up, things must be said in a more convuluted or idiomatic way...
TO the original poster: Actually I think it would be much more interesting to hear how you as a bilingual English and Tagalog speaker experience moving between these languages, from a societal, interactional or internal perspective. Do you get confused, moving from a verb-first language to English? Are there some things that are easier or more natural to talk about in Tagalog? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| sfuqua Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4575 days ago 581 posts - 977 votes Speaks: English*, Hawaiian, Tagalog Studies: Spanish | Message 13 of 29 18 February 2012 at 5:09am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm a nonnative speaker of Tagalog. I lived in the Philippines for years; I studied it formally for about a year and just lived in the country for years. My wife is from the Philippines, a Cebuana, who speaks Tagalog well, even though she is not a native speaker. I've used Tagalog at least part of the day for the past 28 years. Filipino soap operas are playing in the background as I write this.
I loved living in the Philippines; I'd be there today if I could figure out a way to make a decent living there. I had many adventures there; I was on the streets of Manila for the People Power revolution, our town was taken over by the Communist Guerrillas for a night, and we were way too close to Mt Pinatubo when it erupted. During all of those times, speaking Tagalog was great. When there was real trouble, the English seemed to drop out of the conversation, leaving only Tagalog. The only other language that I speak well, besides English, is Samoan. My impression of Tagalog is that it is much more complex for an English speaker than Samoan is. The suffixes, prefixes and particles that move around to change emphasis, I still don't get it very well. Like most nonnatives I've heard, I tended to settle into a pattern of only using certain patterns with certain verbs, overusing mag-, um- and -in. I love those sentences like "Bababa' ba?" or "Dapat natin harapan ang katotohanan" Katoto-what? I know the word as a memorized unit, but generating it the way a native speaker does, no way! The massive number of words borrowed from Spanish might help learners who are familiar with that language, but having "siguro" as "maybe" and "sigurado" as "for sure" might give some people headaches. Since speaking English is a sign of being educated, some Filipinos are a bit insulted when a nonnative speaker tries to use his/her Tagalog on them, but most folks seem to appreciate the effort. I've only met one Filipino in the US who did not speak English better than I speak Tagalog. I'm a teacher, and I notice that some Filipino parents seem to like the idea that the guy teaching their children speaks Tagalog; I guess they like to know that I know where they're coming from. My Filipino students love it; I think they take me more seriously as their teacher. Tagalog has been a joy; I'm ashamed that after this long my Tagalog is still as rough as it is. I still butcher the grammar occasionally, and I know my intonation patterns are very nonnative sometimes. Maybe I'll get better :) I actually just worked through the Pimsleur Tagalog series. I didn't learn any new vocabulary, but I did improve my pronunciation. I wonder if the DLI made a Tagalog course. steve 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 arashikat Diglot Pro Member United States Joined 4487 days ago 53 posts - 80 votes Speaks: Tagalog*, English Studies: Korean Personal Language Map | Message 14 of 29 18 February 2012 at 11:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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@viedums I've never had difficulty switching between the two languages. Sometimes I'm not even aware that I'm switching already. You're actually the first person to tell me that Tagalog is a verb-first kind of language. Now that I think about it--it is pretty peculiar compared to English.
"I'm eating bread." "Kumakain ako ng tinapay" -- VSO -- "Eating I (particle) bread." (This could also mean "I eat bread" in the sense that one eats this kind of food). There's another way to express this: "Ako ay kumakain ng tinapay" -- SVO -- "I am eating bread." The latter is correct, but is quite unnatural to say in a casual conversation. I learned something today! In a societal point of view, code-switching is very natural at least for the middle class lot. For those who only finished high school or lower, it's not so common. Still, they'd use words or phrases such as "at least," "miss," and "love." It's funny though how we tell time and count money either in Spanish or English. Rarely in Tagalog. Tagalog is a fun language. It's easiest for me to joke around in Tagalog. English, not so much. American humor, I noticed, relies more on wit, (occasional) sarcasm, stereotypes, and whole lot of references to other stuff. Tagalog (Filipino) humor, on the other hand, depends on funny words, timing, and delivery. **** @sfuqua Kakabakaba ka ba? Haha! There's a technical term for this, but I don't remember it. I'm always amazed and happy to meet non-native Filipinos who speak our language. I did get a lot of insight from your post. I never really knew how Tagalog was perceived by those studying it. I'm sure that you've met more Filipinos who said "Tagalog is very easy," and rarely someone who thinks it's hard. Were the verbs hard? The affixes? Doing business or working in the Philippines without knowing Tagalog is a big mistake, in my opinion. Your knowing Tagalog not only endeared you to the Filipinos, but also saved you from a lot of teasing and people taking advantage of you. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| sfuqua Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4575 days ago 581 posts - 977 votes Speaks: English*, Hawaiian, Tagalog Studies: Spanish | Message 15 of 29 19 February 2012 at 5:48am | IP Logged | ||
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Many foreigners live in the Philippines for years without learning more than a few words of Tagalog. They think they know the country, but they just float around on the surface of a deep ocean :)
steve 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| trainspotted11 Newbie United States Joined 4441 days ago 5 posts - 12 votes Speaks: Tagalog | Message 16 of 29 01 April 2012 at 7:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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I lived in the Philippines for 2 years, mostly in the province of Pangasinan and am
fluent in Tagalog. Is it a hard language? Yes and no. No in the sense that there are really no genders of words, except a few loan words. For example the word "siya" means "he", "she" and "it". "Kapatid" just means "brother" or "sister", you rarely hear "kapatid na lalaki" or "kapatid na babae". The hard things about it are the actor focus verbs versus object focus. For example: Nagbasa ako ng aklat - I read a book. Binasa ko ang aklat - I read the book, referring to a specific book. A mag verb can be a mag, makapag, magpa or makipag verb, depending on how you refer to the actor of the sentence. If its a -in verb, it could be -in, ma-, pa- -in, ect depending on the role of the object. It's the same with um verbs and i- verbs. Every verb can have abilitative, causative, object focus or actor focus conjugations. That's by far the most difficult part. The crazy verbs. So yeah, easy in the sense that there are no genders or cases, hard in the sense that verbs will drive you crazy, with sometimes literally hundreds of conjugations that can go with just one word. Hope that was helpful. 5 persons have voted this message useful |
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