Learning Tagalog

One of the key parts of my preparation for moving to the Philippines was to learn their language.But that's where the problems start. They don't just have one language!

The lady from Manazel Cafe, Corleen . Patrick, Ram, Ate Tess and Lee all speak Bisaya. Corleen and Lee also speak Tagalog , same as Hazel and Dino and Coco. The lady at the cafe never left her island so cannot speak Tagalog. Jay only learnt to speak Tagalog when he went to study in Pangasinan and no one understood his local dialect!

I remember when I first moved to the Middle East in 2000 to work in Kuwait. I thought that Kuwait was the same as Saudi , and Bahrain and Dubai. But each country is different, with different attitudes to alcohol, pork, religion and homosexuality for example. And so it is in the Philippines, some islands are majority Muslim (Mindanao) and others catholic or Christian. There are even differences in dialect between the south and north of a big island like Palawan or Luzon. The only languages spoken virtually everywhere are English and Tagalog. One of the things I have noticed though is that Pinoys really appreciate it when I try and talk their language , even though my pronunciation is so bad!

I started noting down common phrases in a word document on my laptop such as:

Magandang Araw = have a good day

Magandang Umaga Kabayan- Good morning countrymen ( Filipinos)

Magandang Hapon- Good afternoon

Magandang Gabi- Good evening

Walang anuman- Welcome

Kamusta kayo ?- how are you? ( to a group)

Ayos Lang- fine

Kamusta ka? – How are you ( one person)

Mabuti naman ako – I am fine

Paalam- goodbye

Then I would see something and ask what it was in Tagalog so on one road trip with Ritchelle and her boys from El Nido to Sibaltan I learnt:

Butiki – Newt

Tuko – Geeko

Kambing- Goat

Manok- Chicken

Aso = Dog

Pusa = Cat

and Carribou = Carribou!


Thanks to Kobe and John Paul for teaching me about their animals

Sometimes I would see something of interest at work and ask Kuya Dino how to say that in Tagalog, that is how I learnt:

Tumatalbog ang dede – which means bouncing breast, and I will not embarrass my co- worker by naming her!!

Sometimes I learnt by asking what certain signs meant while when I walked form the Heritage Hotel in Manila to the Mall of Asia and along the fence I saw:

Bawal Mamingwit- no fishing

Bawal umihi – no urinating

Bawal manigarilyo-no smoking

But reading and talking are two different things in many languages

I would pronounce Kain ( lets eat) as Cane, whereas the Pinoys pronounce it Car In!

Magenda Chester

From time to time Chester,in Manila , would email me the latest street slang and I would amaze my Pinoy colleagues in the Middle East with words like :

LODI (law-dee) - reversed IDOL. Used when a person is amazing. say, "You are so good in singing! LODI"

PETMALU - (pet-mal-loo) reversed MALUPET or in English slang "Cool! Amazing! You slayed it!" say, "You slayed that round! PETMALU!"

and then of course there was all the gay slang I picked up of my gay friends like:

Charoot ( Joke) and much more that I cannot out here like Hippon and Lollipop! Chester is sooo Makulit ( bad) .

Patrick telling me my Pork and Chicken adobo was now tasty ( Masarap)

To my cost I also learnt that some words can have more than one meaning like Tanga and Bobo. I remember chatting with Kuya Patrick in Germany once and he was a little slow on the uptake He wrote, "sorry, I am so Bobo". Later Corleen was messing around and I called him Bobo and he got very upset, He said it meant mentally reatrded. Opps , sorry Corleen!