Making Out in Tagalog. Renato Perdon

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      OVERVIEW

      If you have spent several years grappling with the complicated grammatical structures of French, German, Italian or Spanish, you will find Tagalog, especially the informal version in this book, a joy.

      Tagalog is the main language in Manila, the capital of the Philippines and its surrounding areas. It is the lingua franca of Filipinos in the Philippines as well as in other parts of the world. With over 150 languages and their various dialects, Filipinos in the Philippines as well as in other parts of the world use Tagalog as their lingua franca. By the way, Tagalog is recently considered the most spoken Southeast Asian language in the U.S. One of the eight major Philippine languages, Tagalog belongs to the Austronesian family of languages which includes Malay, Indonesian, and Hawaiian.

      An easy-going language spoken today on the streets of the Philippines, Tagalog is one of the many local languages in the country that developed over the centuries as traders from different ethnic groups mixed and mingled from all parts of the world. From as early as the 12th century, Chinese and Arab traders flooded the language with their own vocabularies, as did the neighboring islands of Indonesia and mainland Asia, and later the Spanish and the Americans. For the next 300 years after the Spanish colonization of the islands in 1565, the Philippines became a melting pot where the east met the west. The Philippines, particularly in its economy, society and culture, was forever changed. The west and its people brought with them distinctly new ways of living, believing, creating and relating to others that changed and eventually enriched the spoken language.

      The almost 50 years of American occupation from 1898 onwards added to the western outlook of the Filipinos in dealing with one another, and particularly with the outside world.

      TAGALOG ALPHABET

      The Tagalog alphabet has 20 letters: 5 vowels and 15 consonants.

A	B	K	D	E	G	H	I	L	M
N	NG	O	P	R	S	T	U	W	Y

      The five (5) vowels are:

a	(ah) as in “ask, far”	sabon (soap)
e	(eh) as in “end, way”	edad (age)
i	(ee) as in “eve, meet”	ilaw (light)
o	(aw) as in “obey, note”	lobo (balloon)
u	(oo) as in “food, moon”	tuhod (knee)

      and 15 consonants:

b	as in “bat”	baboy (pig)
ng	as in “sing”	ngipin (teeth)
k	as in “king”	kasama (companion)
p	as in “patriot”	pera (money)
d	as in “day”	diwa (spirit)
r	as in “rat”	radyo (radio)
g	as in “give”	gamot (medicine)
s	as in “start”	silya (chair)
h	as in “hit”	hita (thigh)
t	as in “time”	tasa (cup)
l	as in “level”	lito (confused)
w	as in “way”	wika (language)
m	as in “mature”	mata (eyes)
y	as in “yard”	yelo (ice)
n	as in “nut”	nanay (mother)

      If Tagalog has 15 letters in its alphabet, Filipino which is the Philippine national language has 28 letters—which includes all of the 26 letters of the English alphabet plus ng and ñ. The letters C, F, J, Ñ, Q, V, X, and Z are used mainly in names of people: Corazon, Josefa, Victoria; places: Quezon, Luzon, Zamboanga, Cebu; things: Kleenex, Xerox; and in English loanwords.

      PRONUNCIATION

      Tagalog words are relatively easy to pronounce. They are in fact read or pronounced as spelled or written except for ng (nang) and mga (ma-nga). All the letters in a word are sounded and there are no silent letters. If a word has two successive vowels, then each vowel is treated as separate syllable and pronounced.

      For example: MA-A-A-LA-LA-HA-NIN. By the way, this seven-syllable word means “thoughtful.”

      Oo (yes) is pronounced as aw-aw.

      Saan (where) is pronounced as sah-ahn

      Uwi (go home) is pronounced as oo-wee

      Most of the time for non-native speakers, it is quite challenging to pronounce words with ng especially at the beginning of the word. For example, ngiti (smile), ngipin (teeth) or pangalan (name). A strategy to practice these words is to keep pronouncing “sing along” several times until it is pronounced as if it’s one word: singalong.

      STRESSING OF WORDS

      Tagalog (Ta-GA-log) is pronounced with the stress on the second syllable. Correct pronunciation of Tagalog words depends on the stress, which is normally on the syllable before the last (called the penultimate stress) and unmarked, as in buhay “life;” but sometimes on the last syllable (known as the acute stress), which is marked by an accent, as in buháy “alive.” For most 3-syllable words, the stress is on the second syllable: Tagálog, Salámat.

      A difference in stress (emphasis on a particular syllable) causes a difference in meaning of the same word. For example:

Báka (cow)	Baká (maybe, perhaps)
Hápon (afternoon)	Hapón (Japanese)
Búkas (tomorrow)	Bukás (open)
Táyo (we, us, inclusive)	Tayó’ (stand)

      Unfortunately, there are no stress or accent marks when reading Tagalog materials. So meanings are actually taken in the context on how the word was used.

      ASPIRATION

      The letters, P, T, and K are not aspirated, meaning they are not pronounced with a puff of air like English. An easy way to test whether these letters are aspirated is to hold a paper in front of your mouth while pronouncing them. The paper should not move or air should not come out from your lips whenever these letters are pronounced, for example, papel (paper). T in Filipino is pronounced in the same way you would pronounce D in English, as in tatay (father) or takda (homework).

      GLOTTAL STOP

      The glottal stop (’) is produced when the opening between the vocal cords is slightly closed, stopping air coming from the lungs. The glottal stop provides a significant contrast with other sounds:

Non-glottal	Glottal
áso (dog)	aso’ (smoke)
báta (robe)	bata’ (child)
sála (living room)	sala’ (fault)

      THE LETTER “R”

      The Tagalog R is very different from the English R. It is sounded by flicking the tip of the tongue against the back of the upper front teeth. Some Filipinos really like to roll their R’s by rapidly repeating this action in a machine gun fashion. Others roll their Rs from the back of the throat. Now, try to say regalo (gift), relo (watch), turon (banana lumpia), tigre (tiger), … and if you get frustrated, say GRRRR!!!

      BASIC GRAMMAR

      PREDICATE BEFORE SUBJECT

      In English, the sentence structure is subject followed by the predicate. In Tagalog, it’s the other way around: predicate before subject. Some books use different terms like comment + topic which is the same as predicate + subject. (The subject/topic refers to what the sentence is about, and the predicate/comment refers to what is said about the subject.) For example Tumakbo СКАЧАТЬ