I've just been a facilitator for a visiting international school from the Phillippines' trip to Chiang Mai. While the teachers spoke Tagalog, some of the students only knew a little and both teachers and students spoke fluent American English. Nonetheless, according to our Rough Guide to Southeast Asia more than 25 million Filipinos speak one dialect or other of the national language called Tagalog as their native language or when speaking English they speak a slang form called Taglish instead.
Alphabet
The Rough Guide to South East Asia's take on the alphabet with a few added notes of my own:
a
|
apple
|
e
|
mess
|
i
|
ditto, more
elongated
|
o
|
bore
|
u
|
put
|
ay
|
buy
|
aw
|
mount
|
iw
|
ee continued into
the u sound in put
|
ou
|
noise
|
uw
|
quarter
|
uy
|
oo into the i sound
in ditto
|
c
|
skin
|
g
|
get
|
k
|
skin, unaspirated
(no breath felt on hand in front of mouth)
|
mga
|
pronounced as mang
|
ng
|
singing
|
p
|
speak, unaspirated
(see above)
|
t
|
stop, unaspirated
(see above)
|
From the same
website as my previous posts.
| Tagalog Alphabet | English Sound | Pronunciation Example |
|---|
| A a | /a/ | as in hat |
| B b | /b/ | as in book |
| C c | /k/ or/s/ | as in cat or city |
| D d | /d/ | as in dog |
| E e | /ɛ/ | as in elephant |
| F f | /f/ | as in food |
| G g | /g/ | as in gold |
| H h | /h/ | as in house |
| I i | /i/ | as in Italy |
| J j | /dʒ/or /h/ | as in job |
| K k | /k/ | as in kit |
| L l | /l/ | as in life |
| M m | /m/ | as in mouse |
| N n | /n/ | as in noon |
| Ñ ñ | /ɲ/,/nʲ/ or/nj/ | as in España |
| Ng ng | /ŋ/ | as in sing |
| O o | /o/ | as in old |
| P p | /p/ | as in play |
| Q q | /kʷ/ | as in quiz |
| R r | /ɾ/ | as in road |
| S s | /s/ | as in smile |
| T t | /t/ | as in time |
| U u | /u/ | as in up |
| V v | /v/ | as in vast |
| W w | /w/ | as in wind |
| X x | /ks/ | as in ox |
| Y y | /j/ | as in you |
| Z z | /z/ | as in zebra |
And a fun Tagalog alphabet
song to sing along to.
Basic phrases
According to The Rough Guide, the stress is most likely to fall on the first syllable in words of two syllable, but will never do so in words of three syllables or more where it will almost always fall on the last or penultimate syllable instead. The bold indicates where the stress falls in the word.
Vowels next to each other are pronounced as separate syllables.
Finally, there are no tones in Tagalog (hooray!).
Hello
/ How are you?
|
Kamusta
|
Fine,
thanks
|
Mabuti,
salamat
|
Goodbye
|
Paalam,
or Bye
|
Good
evening
|
Magandang
Gabi
|
Excuse
me
|
Iskyus
(to get past)
|
Please
|
Use
the word paki before a verb, for example, upo means to sit so paki-upo
means ‘Please sit’
|
Thank
you
|
Salamat
[po] The po at the end is used to make any phrase more polite
|
Yes
|
oo
(oh-oh)
|
No
|
hindi
|
My
name is…
|
Ako
si...
|
How
much?
|
Magano
po
|
I’m
vegetarian
|
Vegetarian
ako
|
