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Stelle’s Taga-log

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Stelle
Bilingual Triglot
Senior Member
Canada
tobefluent.com
Joined 3933 days ago

949 posts - 1686 votes 
Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish
Studies: Tagalog

 
 Message 57 of 117
03 July 2014 at 10:56pm | IP Logged 
Notes on grammar / sentence structure:

may – has/have, there is, there are
mayroon – has/have, there is, there are

* “me” and “meron” are acceptable in speech but not in writing
* “mayroon” can stand alone, but “may” must be followed by an object
* word order and linkers change depending on which one you choose to use

wala – none, nothing, absent, there is none

May aso ka ba? (Do you have a dog?)
May aso ako. (I have a dog.)
Mayroon akong aso. (I have a dog.)
Oo. Mayroon. (Yes. I have.)
Wala akong aso. (I don't have a dog.)

May kapatid ba si Mike? (Does Mike have a sibling?)
Oo. Mayroon. (Yes. He has.)
May kapatid si Mike. (Mike has a sibling. No linker after “may”)
Mayroong kapatid si Mike. (Mike has a sibling. “-g” linker after “mayroon”)
Walang kapatid si Mike. (Mike doesn't have a sibling. “-ng” linker after “wala”)

"po" is an enclitic to show respect, usually when talking to someone older. Filipinos always use "po" when
speaking to their parents.


Mayroon pong kapatid si Mike. ( “-ng” linker after “po”)
May kapatid po si Mike. (no linker)
Wala pong kapatid si Mike. ("-ng" linker after "po")

"ba" is an enclitic to turn a statement into a question.

Mayroon bang kapatid si Mike? ("-ng" linker after "ba")
May kapatid ba si Mike? (no linker)
Wala bang kapatid si Mike? (Doesn't Mike have a sibling? "-ng" marker after "ba")

enclitics follow an order of priority
1. na (already)
2. pa (still, yet)
3. din/rin (also)
4. daw/raw (supposedly)
5. po (polite particle)
6. ba (question marker)

May aso na po ba kayo?
Do you have a dog already, sir/madam?


Edited by Stelle on 03 July 2014 at 10:58pm

2 persons have voted this message useful



Stelle
Bilingual Triglot
Senior Member
Canada
tobefluent.com
Joined 3933 days ago

949 posts - 1686 votes 
Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish
Studies: Tagalog

 
 Message 58 of 117
07 July 2014 at 2:51am | IP Logged 
Weekly Tagalog Update

Tara Mag-Tagalog Tayo: I finished lesson 6 – talking about family. Tomorrow I'll start working on lesson 7,
which introduces basic verbs. I'm looking forward to learning more action words, because I definitely feel held
back in conversations by the fact that I only know about 5 verbs! I've been writing short paragraphs at least twice
a week and having them corrected by native speakers.

Teach Yourself Filipino: I finished lesson 5 and started lesson 6. I'm moving through these lessons much
more slowly than I'd originally planned. I think that if I'd chosen this as my primary (or only) resource, I would
have moved through it a lot more quickly. As it stands, TY is a good source of audio and comprehensible input,
so it's perfect as a back-up resource. I also find it really useful to run into the same vocabulary in various
resources; it's much easier to remember new words when there's a synergy between resources.

Speaking

Tutoring: I've upped my tutoring sessions from 30 minutes to 45 minutes. I made a bunch of conversation
cards with simple questions (“Do you have any siblings?” “Where do you work?” etc) and sent copies to my tutors.
It's easy to spend 20 or 30 minutes working through random question cards, adding a few details every session.
So the first time, I might have simply answered “I work at a language school.” Now, I can say “I work at a
language school on a military base. My students are adults. I teach French. I like my job because I like seeing my
students learn.” I'm also working on my listening skills, since I ask my tutors the same questions that they ask
me.

Family: Now that I know more words, I've been having more short conversations in Tagalog with my
husband. Yesterday he suggested that we speak only in Tagalog at home, and I thought it was a great idea – until
I realized I could barely say anything about day-to-day stuff! I'm not quite there yet, but I really appreciate the
opportunity. For now, I think we'll have a certain time every evening for immersion. I don't think I have the mental
energy to do it full-time, and I don't think he realizes how draining it would be for him. In a few weeks we'll be
visiting his family for 10 days, so I have a true immersion opportunity coming up.

Vocabulary

I'm keeping up with anki, although my deck was getting too big too fast, so I've temporarily set new cards at five
per day. In addition, I made a new deck with the same questions that I use during my tutoring sessions, so I'm
also using anki to practice speaking out loud.

I was frustrated with adjectives starting with ma-, so I created a deck on quizlet with just those words – my
quizlet deck has 58 words at this point, all of them adjectives starting with ma-. I play the scatter game a few
times per day, and I've found that I'm much more successful now when I get those cards in anki.

Other thoughts

Once I'm through lesson 7 in Tara Mag-Tagalog Tayo, I'm going to start looking at outside sources for input,
probably children's stories on youtube, Gloss activities and songs to start.

I think that it's going to be much more difficult to transition to more native Tagalog materials than it was in
Spanish. If anything, I had too many resources in Spanish. But I'm finding it quite a bit harder to locate
comprehensible input in Tagalog.

While there are Tagalog picture books for children, I can't find any children's novels. I'd love to start with Charlie
and the Chocolate Factory, the way that I did in Spanish, but as far as I can tell it hasn't been translated into
Tagalog. Most Tagalog-speakers I know read English books. Once I'm in the city, I'm going to check out the
library in the neighbourhood with the most Filipinos. If they don't have Tagalog/Filipino books, then I guess no
one does!

I'd also like to locate a children's show in Tagalog. Adult television (on The Filipino Channel) is just too far
beyond me. I understand so little that I don't think that it's a good use of my time right now. But a show for small
kids – something like Dora in Tagalog – would probably really help my comprehension.
1 person has voted this message useful



Stelle
Bilingual Triglot
Senior Member
Canada
tobefluent.com
Joined 3933 days ago

949 posts - 1686 votes 
Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish
Studies: Tagalog

 
 Message 59 of 117
11 July 2014 at 12:20am | IP Logged 
Naka-bakasyon ako ngayon. Tuwing umaga gumigising ako nang alas siyete y medya kasama ang asawa ko.
Nagkakape, nag-aalmusal at nag-i-internet ako. Pagkatapos, naglalakad at naglalaro ako kasama ng aso ko.
Pagkatapos, nag-aaral ako kasama ng titser kong Tagalog sa Skype. Paminsan-minsan nag-i-exercise ako, pero
kadalasan tamad ako! Nagbabasa ako ng libro o naglilinis ako ng bahay ko.

Check out any corrections from natives here:
my italki notebook entry

(I'm on vacation now. Every morning I get up at 7:30 with my husband. I drink coffee, eat breakfast and use the
internet. Then, I walk and play with my dog. Then, I study with my Tagalog teacher on Skype. Sometimes I
exercise, but often I'm lazy! I read a book or clean my house.)

Notice the "verbing" of English nouns?

I exercise - nag-e-exercise ako
I email - nag-i-email ako
I use the internet - nag-i-internet ako

edited to add link to italki notebook entry

Edited by Stelle on 11 July 2014 at 12:23am

1 person has voted this message useful



Stelle
Bilingual Triglot
Senior Member
Canada
tobefluent.com
Joined 3933 days ago

949 posts - 1686 votes 
Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish
Studies: Tagalog

 
 Message 60 of 117
11 July 2014 at 4:47pm | IP Logged 
Two newly-discovered resources for Tagalog-learners:

Kalye Speaks

This site has lots of podcasts for different levels of Filipino learners. I've started with the "newbs" lessons. There's
*a lot* of English, but it's funny and entertaining, and they teach some very useful expressions - as well as lots of
cultural tidbits. The hosts are very amusing and easy to listen to. It's nice for down-time learning. I was getting a
bit burned out and tired by my Tagalog study, so it's refreshing to listen to something fun and easy.

first newbie lesson on
KalyeSpeak


Jollitown

I was looking for a Filipino kids' show. Enter Jollitown. There's no getting around it: this is a strange show. A
few things you should know about Jollitown:

1.: It's produced by Jollibee, Philippines' most popular fast food chain, and there are burgers, fries and
sundaes all over the place. In a way, it feels almost like a half-hour fast food commercial. And yet, it's won
awards for children's programming in the Philippines. Can you even imagine a McDonald's TV show winning
prizes for producing a kids' show? (Prizes, no. But I could *definitely* see McD's wanting to create a kids' show.
What better way to rev up the "nag factor"? Ha!)

2.: The gender roles seem almost a caricature of themselves. The two boys are an athlete and a scientist.
The two girls are a starlet and a cheerleader. No, really. I understand that there are cultural differences at play,
but it still seems so strange to me!

3.: The whole thing is in Taglish. The code-switching happens quickly and constantly. One sentence is in
English, the next in Tagalog, and the third in a mix of the two. It's fascinating to me that Taglish is not only used
in casual conversation, it's also consciously used in children's programming. What does that say about Taglish as
a language? I find the whole evolutionary process of languages fascinating in general, and Taglish in particular is
changing at breakneck speed. Watching a Taglish kids' show is a good thing for me as a learner, I think, since
pure Tagalog sounds odd and stilted to native speakers.

4.: It uses live actors. This is important for me. The repetitiveness of kids' shows is a necessity right now,
since anything aimed at adults just flies over my head. But I can't stand squeaky cartoon voices. Live actors are
much easier to understand. All of the characters speak slowly and clearly - whether they're speaking in English or
in Tagalog.

Jollitown episode 1
1 person has voted this message useful



Stelle
Bilingual Triglot
Senior Member
Canada
tobefluent.com
Joined 3933 days ago

949 posts - 1686 votes 
Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish
Studies: Tagalog

 
 Message 61 of 117
12 July 2014 at 9:54pm | IP Logged 
Weekly Tagalog Update

Tara Mag-Tagalog Tayo: I'm working my way through lesson 7. It's great to finally learn some verbs!

Teach Yourself Filipino: I didn't work much on TY this week. I only did one of three dialogues in lesson 6.

We're going on holidays on Friday, so I'd like to finish lesson 7 of TMTT and lesson 6 of TY before then. I don't
know if I'll do any work during the two weeks that we're visiting family. As least one week will be spent in a
Tagalog-speaking home, so there will be lots of built-in exposure. I think that I'll probably just bring my TMTT
textbook with me. We'll see.

Speaking

Tutoring: I booked daily Tagalog lessons this week. I think that I may have been a bit overambitious. By the
end of the week I wasn't even looking forward to them anymore. It was just too much like work. During Friday's
lesson I didn't even try - after 15 minutes, I just spent the rest of the time chatting with my tutor in English about
immigration. Bad me!

Vocabulary

I let anki slide for three days this week. (Yep, it wasn't a great week for language study overall.) The backlog that
was waiting for me today was a bit overwhelming! I've lowered my new card limit to five per day, but I still have
between 75 and 90 reviews on most days. So, with a 3-day backlog, I had to work my way through 285 cards.
Yuck! Luckily, more and more cards are "maturing", so I'm hoping that the big daily reviews will start to get
smaller as time goes on.

Other thoughts

I listened to episode 1 of Jollitown twice this week. Shockingly, I found it engaging both times - probably because
my Tagalog is so low that I'm just excited to hear words that I can recognize. I think that I'm eventually going to
transcribe a few scenes to really focus my listening. I might also need to learn the songs to the cheesy song in
the middle, since I've been humming it to myself all week.

I also listened to 2 episodes of KalyeSpeak, which I quite enjoyed.

Overall, though, my brain felt pretty tired this week. I think I need to scale back a bit next week. When I originally
started learning Tagalog, my goal was 30-45 minutes per day. I'm well over that now. And while that's a great
thing, it's also a bit too much, since I'm also focusing on reading and listening in Spanish for the Super
Challenge. I think that 30 minutes with a tutor in the morning, and then 30 minutes working through my courses
in the evening will be more than plenty right now, at least until our holidays.
1 person has voted this message useful



beanie
Newbie
Australia
Joined 4553 days ago

35 posts - 50 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Tagalog

 
 Message 62 of 117
13 July 2014 at 2:48pm | IP Logged 
Hi Stelle

You can get kid's books in the National Bookstore in the Philippines. I have a few at
home. You can get some as well that have Tagalog on one side and English on the other.

Not sure if you are in the Philippines or not, I've just dropped in at the end of your
journal.

My own journal (or the owner I should say) suffers from ADD when it comes to language
learning! Easily bored and distracted. I kept going with my Tagalog learning, but
didn't bother to keep the journal up to date.

Mark
2 persons have voted this message useful



Stelle
Bilingual Triglot
Senior Member
Canada
tobefluent.com
Joined 3933 days ago

949 posts - 1686 votes 
Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish
Studies: Tagalog

 
 Message 63 of 117
16 July 2014 at 5:20pm | IP Logged 
I recently read - and absolutely loved - How to Improve Your Foreign Language Immediately by Boris Shekhtman.

(You can read my review/summary/thoughts on How To Improve Your Foreign Language Immediately on my
Spanish log:

here
and here)

I started working with my Tagalog tutor today on building islands. She's a really great teacher - she jumped right
in.

So today:
- I wrote the original islands very quickly right before my tutoring session
- I spent about 10 minutes going over each of them with my tutor, changing wording to make it sound more
natural (the islands that I'm posting here are post-tutor)
-I practiced saying each sentence one at a time, while my tutor helped me with pronunciation, rhythm and
intonation
- My tutor will send me a recording of each island so that I can hear it spoken naturally

In future one-hour tutoring sessions, I think that we'll spend about half the time on informal conversation
(including more "artificial" situations that allow me to practice my islands) and half the time time practicing old
islands and building new ones.

I don't think that I'm going to memorize them, as described in the book. I just want to get really comfortable with
all of the structures, so that I can change and recombine them at will.

island one - general introduction for language partners (the "Taga-Canada" part can be dropped if I'm meeting
people face-to-face instead of on Skype)


Ako si Stephanie. Taga-Canada ako. Nakatira ako sa ________ ngayon, malapit lang sa Atlantic Ocean. Pero lilipat
kami sa Ontario kasi mas malapit iyon sa mga pamilya namin. Titser ako ng Prances sa mga matatanda. Nag-
aaral ako ng Tagalog kasi Filipino ang asawa ko.

(I'm Stephanie. I'm from Canada. I live in ________ now, close to the Atlantic Ocean. But we'll be moving soon to
Ontario because it's closer to our families. I'm a French teacher for adults. I'm studying Tagalog because my
husband is Filipino.)

island two - about my husband (this will come up a lot, because the first question when people find out I'm
learning Tagalog is "why", which leads naturally into talking about my husband)


May-asawa na ako. JP ang pangalon niya. Filipino siya, pero 16 years na siya nakatira sa Canada, at Canadian
citizen na siya. 13 years na kaming magkasama. Nakatira kami sa Nova Scotia ngayon, malayo sa mga pamilya
namin. 19 hours ang biyahe papunta sa bahay ng mga pamilya namin. Masyadong malayo!

(I'm married. My husband's name is JP. He's Filipino, but he's been living in Canada for 16 years and he's a
Canadian citizen. We've been together for 13 years. We live in Nova Scota now, far from our families. The trip to
our parents' houses is 19 hours [Our parents are 19 hours away]. It's too far!)

* I made some slight changes to my islands, because I didn't want to announce on the internet exactly where I
live and work!


Edited by Stelle on 16 July 2014 at 5:22pm

1 person has voted this message useful



Stelle
Bilingual Triglot
Senior Member
Canada
tobefluent.com
Joined 3933 days ago

949 posts - 1686 votes 
Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish
Studies: Tagalog

 
 Message 64 of 117
17 July 2014 at 12:35am | IP Logged 
Notes on grammar / sentence structure:

I've finally started learning some verbs. So far I've only worked on one form: mag- verbs. Prefixes and infixes
change based on aspect (completed/past, incomplete/present/habitual, contemplated/future). So far so good!
They're actually very easy so far, which was a pleasant surprise. There are a few other patterns for verbs, but with
just mag- verbs I can already say a lot more than I could before!

We made squid and pork adobo tonight, so this post is brought to you by my supper.

luto - root word: cook
magluto - to cook (infinitive); mag + root word

Nagluto ako ng adobo.
completed: I cooked adobo.
(nag + root)

Nagluluto kamin ng adobo.
incompleted: We cook adobo. / We are cooking adobo.
(nag + doubling of first syllable of root + root)

Magluluto sila ng adobo.
comtemplated: They will cook adobo.
(mag + doubling of first syllable of root + root)


1 person has voted this message useful



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