New Tagalog resources - from the Philippines

Being in the Philippines, I decided to stock up on some Filipino language resources. Filipino music is easy to find on the internet via Youtube, Spotify, and Google search. What is fairly difficult to find is literature or reading materials that are at a decent level for a novice or intermediate learner. Good dictionaries are probably the most difficult and require visiting different bookstores. With the exception of one, I found all of these at National Book Store.

Keep in mind that someone who wants any of the books mentioned here will need access to bookstores in the Philippines, either physically or through someone who would be going to or who lives in the Philippines. It might be possible to find these through various online outlets like Amazon, Lazada, or the National Book Store website but in my view the chances of that are slim. Where possible I will post a link to the product page.

Bartolome del Valle and Melania Jimenez del Valle, Talatinigang Pilipino-Pilipino. This is a decent pocket-sized monolingual Filipino dictionary. Many of the meanings appear to be just synonyms, or the meanings sometimes do not appear to be very helpful.

Vito C. Santos, Vicassan's Pilipino-English Dictionary (Abridged Edition). I like this dictionary because the English explanations are quite in-depth. The explanations are similar to what one would find in a monolingual English dictionary. Most entries are easy to find because the well-known affixed words like pag-ibig have their own entry. Vicassan's appears to be about as comprehensive as Leo English's famous dictionary but the former is lighter and easier to carry. The link to Vicassan's at the National website is here.

Virgilio S. Almario (ed.), Diksiyonaryong Adarna. This is a comprehensive monolingual Filipino dictionary. Ever since the UP Diksiyonaryong Filipino went out of print, this is the dictionary to have. Free access is available is available online at diksiyonaryo.ph. The web version does not contain the sample sentences found in the print version.

Teresita C. Basadre, Sari-saring Alamat: Tungkol sa mga Hayop, Halaman, at Pook (Book 1). This is a book of legends. I thought it would be an easy read but the style is more literary than what I am used to. Fortunately, when I finish the book I will be better versed at this style.

Fanny A. Garcia, Pamilya Migrasyon Disintegrasyon. I am enjoying this book, probably because it is easy to read at my level. The style is colloquial so I'm not doing much word hunting in the dictionaries. I find amusing the Filipinoization of the few English words that appear.

Servando de los Angeles, Ang Huling Timawa. I have not started on this book yet but when I skimmed through it at the bookstore it looked like used the standard words found in novels.

In future posts, I plan to do some reviews on these books. I might not get to review all of them but I will definitely do the dictionaries.

Free online monolingual Filipino dictionary

In September 2017, the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino (KWF) announced that there is now an online Filipino dictionary. It is a Filipino-Filipino or monolingual Filipino dictionary. This is great news for serious learners of the Filipino language. It is accessible at diksiyonaryo.ph.

Monolingual Filipino dictionaries are scarce. Most of them are found only in the Philippines and the quality varies. The UP Diksiyonaryong Filipino, authored by the Sentro ng Wikang Filipino (SWF) and published by Anvil, is quite possibly the most comprehensive of all monolingual Filipino dictionaries, but unfortunately it looks like it was taken out of print. Most of the monolingual Filipino dictionaries that I have seen are basically the equivalent of a thesaurus and not really a dictionary per se.

The only Filipino-Filipino dictionary available in e-book form appears to be the Diksiyonaryong Monolingwal sa Filipino, authored by the KWF and published by Anvil. It is based upon the most frequent words found in mass-produced Filipino literature. It is not comprehensive and not intended for learners of the language. But it is still a useful dictionary for those looking to improve their grasp of the Filipino language, particularly because example sentences are provided. The Kindle edition is available here.

The recent diksiyonaryo.ph is basically the online version of Diksiyonaryong Adarna, published by Adarna House. They online version provides nearly all the same features as the print version, like the breakdown of a word to show where/how the affixes attach to the root. The only difference that I can see is that the online version does not provide example sentences whereas the print version supplies sentences for each meaning a word has.

Weekly progress update - 10 Oct 2017

I'm late with this posting because I have been in the process of traveling. I haven't gotten to do much in terms of active studies. But I've kept up on hearing, although not as much as I would have liked. I would say I logged about 25-40 hours last week of hearing. But more on that in a bit.

I've done a bit of outputting because I'm now in the Philippines! I make sure to output only what I know is correct, although I do make an occasional mistake. I'm finding myself being able to respond naturally in conversation, when I'm able to produce something. Sometimes I don't get all the Tagalog I hear but that will come in time.

So since I'm now here in Tagalog's native land I'm hearing Filipino constantly. The 25-40 hours I mentioned earlier was based on the selective things that I decided to put on. On top of that, I have probably heard or been the recipient of another 20+ hours.

Now that I have a stable internet connection I can get back to focusing on selective hearing and active studies. I have felt that these help immensely and will only further my progress as I now have a full immersion environment.

One thing I've noticed is that I have been dreaming quite a bit in Tagalog. It happened on the airplane and it has happened a few nights here. Some of the dreams have been a result of hearing conversations in my sleep. Other dreams have been during sleep time.

I'm always happy to be here. Even the few weeks that I've been here before have done wonders for my Tagalog in terms of comprehension and speaking. Now that I have made a more conscious decision and have a process to improve I know that progress is inevitable. I'm also excited because I get to hunt for some reading material here.

Weekly progress update - 1 Oct 2017

Been at it pretty much the same as last week. I had heard around 50 or more hours of Tagalog. Picking out new words and phrases seems to be slowing down. Around my church mates, I feel that I'm understand about the same amount.

I've been been doing the flash cards every day. Words, phrases, and sentences are becoming much easier to say, although a couple of sentences had me tongue twisted. Overall, imitation is becoming much easier at the first pass.

I've felt a struggle at times this week. It feels as though I've been losing some of what I've gained. I read somewhere that children pick up a new sentence pattern or structure perfectly around their first few tries. But then they start to struggle with using it correctly, apparently because they try experimenting with it.

Some think a similar situation occurs with adults where they apparently seem to start losing their grasp of the language. At some point whatever adults seem to have lost returns and the use of it is even better. I hope that's what is happening here.

As with learning anything to a proficient degree, it's all about the day-to-day process. And I'm proud to say that I've stuck with Tagalog each and every day since writing this blog.

Enjoying the journey

I was trying to find some sentences to plug into my flashcard program so that I could have more content to review and to expose myself to. I don't mind repeatedly hearing/reading/speaking the same thing over again as these activities help to cement the language more into my brain.

So I remember that in 2015 I had emailed a Tagalog instructor about ways to improve my Tagalog skills. He offered some very helpful advice that included putting myself into an environment where I was surrounded by Tagalog. This is similar to what I'm doing now, except that my speaking has taken a backseat to hearing and comprehension.

I remember when I first read the email reply, which was all in Tagalog. When I first read it, the Tagalog was beyond my level. I remember having to look up 1-2 words per sentence. The email was brief so 1-2 words per sentence is significant.

Well I remembered that email and how I had struggled a little bit with some of the words. Those are good types of sentences to improve my Tagalog. So it is 2017 now and I pulled up the email from 2015. And I was a bit disappointed but also overjoyed at the same time.

I understood every single word in that email. Up until maybe a couple of months ago or so I wouldn't have known those words. But now I did. In the past couple of months something happened with my brain that enabled me to know the meaning of those words. So I was disappointed because I couldn't use any of the sentences as flashcards. But the best part is I did not need to!

So even though the journey thus far has felt like a struggle sometimes, the truth is that there is improvement. And much of the time, things don't come together. But then things do come together. And that is the result continuing on in the journey.

So this motivates me even more to enjoy and give attention to the daily process that makes up the journey. Because the results will be there so long as there is consistent work over time.

Totally social Filipino language

The Filipino/Tagalog language is totally a social language. What I mean is when it comes to non-English languages it does not necessarily have the kind of prominence that something like Mandarin, Japanese, or Spanish have. The number of classes for those languages in secondary education or in a university far outnumber the number of classes for Tagalog.

Languages like Mandarin, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and Arabic have a long and deep history. Each of these languages have their classical works that people pay lots of money to get a degree in order to be proficient at understanding and interpreting these classical works. As far as I know, Tagalog does not have the same extent of historical depth.

This is not to say that people don't want to learn Tagalog. In the United States, a number of very reputable universities offer Tagalog classes. The University of Hawaii; the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Madison-Wisconsin; the University of Washington – just to name a few – all offer instruction in Tagalog.

I have also seen scholarly(-level) works in Tagalog. A couple of my books are way beyond my league at the moment because the Tagalog used there is quite complex. I once ran across a journal article in Tagalog where I couldn't follow the Tagalog after the first few sentences (I probably can do a bit better now!). But I'm not aware of scholarly Tagalog being required for graduate-level education in the same way that academic German is required for some philological fields.

Forget all that. Tagalog is totally social. And that's why it's totally awesome.

Yesterday I was out with the elders of my family. A young gal was sitting near my dad and I think she initiated a conversation with him. When I came closer I could hear her speaking Tagalog with him. It seemed to me that she wasn't super proficient in speaking (it seemed like she understood everything they said) as she was using very basic forms. But that doesn't matter. What did matter was that she was speaking the best she could.

That's what makes Tagalog awesome. No matter where Filipinos are, there is that camaraderie that exists, especially when they can switch the language up to Tagalog. The kind of connection is really unexplainable but it's there. And it's awesome.

I'm not saying this is exclusive only to Filipinos. Of course, every group has that connection that especially comes out when both/all sides speak the same national language. What I'm saying is that I don't care that Tagalog isn't as prominent as some other language or that it doesn't have the kind of histories that some other languages have. I hope Tagalog gets to that point. But the social bond that Tagalog carries with it is a real gem.

Weekly progress update - 24 Sep 2017

This past week I've heard maybe somewhere around 50-70 hours of Filipino. It didn't help that I had a number of things going on. But that's life.

I'm finding that hearing Tagalog constantly helps me to be able to understand more. The active learning works well with the more passive hearing.

I haven't tried listening as actively to my new songs. I'm still picking up new words/phrases the more I hear them.

So far I'm happy with the progress.

And as I finish this post, the song playing is "Kay Dali" by Elmo Magalona.

Tagalog resource - SBS Filipino

SBS (Special Broadcasting Service) is a broadcasting service in Australia. It uses both traditional and online modes of transmission. Because I don't live in Australia, I use their online media.

SBS broadcasts in many different languages, Filipino being one of them. I utilize the SBS Filipino podcasts. Most of them are short, usually no longer than 15 minutes. The spoken Filipino is pretty clear and not too fast. Sometimes SBS Filipino will also play a little bit of Australian news, which introduces a bit of English; this can be helpful to better understand the content but sometimes it is annoying when I don't want to hear any English.

Here are ways to access SBS Filipino:

• SBS Filipino main webpage. This is the main page. I like that it is completely in Filipino. You can listen to the most up-to-date broadcast as well as previous broadcasts. There are also previous broadcasts displayed like little news articles with headlines that are all in Filipino. This helps to improve reading.
• SBS Filipino podcast page. The podcasts are arranged nicely and the descriptions are all in Filipino. The archive is huge.
• SBS Filipino podcast on iTunes. For those who use iPhone. The last 20 broadcasts/podcasts are available.
• SBS Filipino app. The link takes you to a page where you can download the iPhone app or the Android app. I don't have any experience with this app, but I assume it works in a similar way to the website.

SBS also has a Facebook and Youtube channel but there is more mixed content there and it seems that the Youtube channel is not consistently updated. Aside from that and the annoying English news clips in some podcasts that I mentioned earlier, SBS Filipino is a resource I like and use.

Song playing as I finished this post: "Umaga Tanghali Gab" by 1:43

The subconscious in language learning

Polyglot Steve Kaufmann has a short interesting video on how language learning is centered on the subconscious. He talks about how the majority of language acquisition is through exposure.

I liked what he said about listening, reading, and speaking. Have a listen and enjoy!

Overcoming failure and fear of failure in language learning

I've noticed that people like to spend time talking about something they should be doing. For example, someone might think that starting a part-time business is a good use of their time and improve their financial situation. But instead of starting that business they're so excited about and have a great vision for, they're just talking about it.

They talk about the how it will give them another form of income and how that will help with a lot of things like paying off debt, accumulating more savings, and having some extra fun money. They're excited about it. But they don't put any of it into action. That type of thing really confuses me.

I think one of the biggest factors is that they are scared to fail. And that is understandable. I think everyone at some point are scared to fail at something. I know I'm scared to fail at many things. It's a natural fear I think.

If my understanding accurate, then there is a problem. The problem isn't the fear of failing. I don't think it's even the failure. The problem is that people allow fear to paralyze them.

That is not healthy because they haven't even failed yet. Or they haven't even tried.

I think that a lot of people get to a point in their language learning where they experience failure. And it's because they failed that they are afraid to try again. Because they are afraid to fail again.

But failure in language learning is the most natural part of language learning. Most people don't realize it but they have failed numerous times in learning their first/primary/native language. When we were acquiring our first language we always failed.

We might have tried to use the common form of a verb with an irregular one. Or we didn't know the meanings of certain "big" words (unless you were studying for the GRE but you probably crammed for that). And there are words we still don't know. Our spelling tests were probably not all perfect. And with the advent of autocorrect and texting shorthand we still probably don't know how to spell a number of words. We know how they look but we don't know how to spell them.

Yet despite all those failures we continued on acquiring our primary language by hearing it, reading it, writing it, and speaking it. Notice that those are all actions. And action is what it takes to learn a language to proficiency. The level of proficiency that someone would like to attain is different for every person. But I imagine that most people who learn a language desire to be at least conversational in a decent way.

So the recipe for overcoming the fear of failure – or even failure itself – is to continue language learning. We've been doing that all our life with our native language and we still continue to do so. Just continue hearing, reading, writing, and speaking on.

Weekly progress update - 17 Sep 2017

I've been at this diary-blog for a little over a week already so I figure a weekly update would be a nice touch. It's not necessary because learning can often be imperceptible. Growth is usually seen in hindsight. Time is another factor and sometimes that imperceptible improvement stretches weeks or even months. So there must be a lot of time involved in growing and learning.

Anyway, I've noted that I was experiencing something like hearing sickness at times. Those were during particular stretches of 24-hours listening – yes, 24-hours in a day. I have probably dialed back a little bit this last week to anywhere between 12-18 hours per day.

One reason is because my mom and uncle are here now so I have to talk more. While talking with them I have sometimes had an earbud with Tagalog media playing. But that tends to be a bit tedious to carry around wired earbuds. Perhaps it's time for those Apple Airpods! I have also been out and about a bit more and I don't have earbuds with me. So I've dialed back the time spent hearing Tagalog. I'm not really keeping track but I'd say I have put in around 100 hours of hearing this past week. I have noticed that I look for Tagalog music or singing some lyrics when I'm not hearing any.

I have had some noticeable improvement with my active Tagalog studies this week. I have started to notice a bit of nuance with the language like wording, word order, spoken rhythm, and ideas/meaning of words. I can't really explain it but it's like there is some clarity about the language. I have noticed that imitation is getting much easier and is becoming more natural.

Another thing is I have been delving into my Tagalog dictionaries more deeply. That's forcing me to get more comfortable with new words and even their forms.

So despite feeling like I'm sliding backwards the other day, I'm happy to say that I can feel some progress. That in itself is a lot to be grateful for.

The feeling is like sliding backward

This week hasn't been the greatest. For one, I'm trying to find more Tagalog materials to pick up word/phrases/sentences to examine, understand, and digest. It's more difficult to find materials in Tagalog than it is with something like Mandarin or Spanish. I found one site that looks like it may have some good material.

The other thing is that I feel like I'm sliding backward. I feel like I have to concentrate more on what I'm hearing just to pick out things, let alone understand. Granted, I downloaded new songs. And I'm encountering new verb forms. So I feel like perhaps I'm being overwhelmed.

None of this is bad in actuality. It sure feels bad. But it's not.

One of the things I set out to do in learning Filipino is to stretch myself. Stretch myself until I'm comfortable with the material. And then stretch myself while I'm comfortable so that I'm truly comfortable with it. I guess I'm doing a good job with that!

So while I should receive an A+ for effort, I know this effort will eventually be rewarded in understanding Tagalog at native level, and then catching up on my speaking. Even if I feel like I'm sliding backwards, the truth is you can slide forward while sliding backward. Yep, sliding forward just turned around but sliding forward nonetheless.

As I was typing this "Ganyan Tagalog" by Janella Salvador was playing. I enjoy that song a lot.

Tagalog verbs are scary but fascinating

Tagalog verbs are somewhat of a nightmare for me. That is mainly because there are so many verb forms! I think I read somewhere that there are over 80 commonly used ones. I'm thinking that the number increases to 100 or so when the less common ones are included.

Despite that I think the Tagalog verb system is fascinating. In English, verbs generally have very few forms and are sometimes modified with auxiliary verbs to form, for example, the future tense. In Tagalog, verbs are formed with affixes, groups of letters added to the beginning, end, and/or middle of a word. Affixes are what give verbs their form and there are a lot of them.

What I find fascinating about Tagalog verbs is that the affix one uses depends on what is one's focus. Is the speaker referring to the doer of the action or the object? Is the person speaking in terms of causation, ability, experiencing something, etc.? There are affixes that allow someone to communicate each of those ideas.

This might scare a learner of Tagalog, especially beginners. But the truth is that a number of verb forms are quite easy to learn. And the most commonly used ones can be used to communicate a whole lot. The ones that are somewhat confusing to English speakers (because I've found English uses a lot of words to communicate the idea) just take some getting used to. Becoming proficient with them just takes some time. One doesn't even necessarily have to formally study Tagalog verbs; lots of exposure should be pretty sufficient.

I've really found the verbal system fascinating and beautiful. When I first learned about these more complex verbs, they became one of the reasons I really wanted to be better at Tagalog.

Silent Sanctuary is one of my favorite OPM (Original Pilipino Music) groups. Talented and underrated (no reviews on any of their albums on iTunes). Their song "Sa'Yo" was the first one that I heard and I was immediately hooked. I bought the entire Melodramatic album based on this song.

From a learner's perspective, this is a great song. It has a nice tune, a nice subject, and the Tagalog isn't too difficult. Enjoy!

Active Tagalog studying

The majority of my posts have been on the "passive" aspects of my Tagalog studies. I tend to avoid terms like "passive" and instead opt for something more accurate like "environment" because creating a Tagalog environment isn't entirely passive. Yes, a lot of it passive in the sense that it's background. However, I tend to incorporate a lot of small activities that are active.

For instance, even though I have music playing constantly in the background, I will every so often listen intently to some lyrics, perhaps a verse or the refrain. I will pay attention to a song when I haven't heard it before. Things like that are all active aspects.

I link this environment I have created to hearing because that's really what I'm doing. It's both passive and active. This environment also includes movies, shows, and news in video form. Those are always done with active hearing.

There is another active aspect that I want to talk a bit about here. That is the studying part which includes imitation and memory. I use only two resources: Anki and the Learning Tagalog books.

Anki is a spaced-repetition computer flashcard program. I use the basic front-back card setup. The card shows me something in Tagalog (the front) and then I try to determine the English idea and check it against the answer (the back). Some would say that this is problematic because I'm using English. But that's what I have to work with right now.

Regarding specifics, one way I use Anki is to learn words that I hear often. I enter the Tagalog as the front and then use a dictionary to determine the English idea and enter that as the back. I enter this as another deck so as not to mix this up with other groups that I'm learning. I eventually want to move to pure Tagalog but I'll figure out how to do that as time comes.

The bulk of my Anki work is the Learning Tagalog sentences and drills. I purchased the entire set because I found it to be the best blend of grammar, vocabulary, and conversational style that I have come across. Learning Tagalog presents lessons consisting of short dialogues and drills. There is a natural speed audio and a slowed down audio. I copied the sentences into Anki along with the audio so that I can read the sentence and hear it. I usually imitate the sentence a few times and then check my understanding with the English they provide. I'll provide an in-depth review of Learning Tagalog some time in the future.

I don't do too much Anki work per day. At this point I'm learning about 20 new sentences along with whatever the program has determined is due for the day. Currently my Anki reviews are taking about 35-40 minutes per day and I expect that time to increase as I do more. I will probably feel most comfortable when an entire review takes between 1 hour to 1.5 hours.

The full Chavacano version of Porque by Maldita

I mentioned this song before in it's "Chagalog" (Chavanco-Tagalog) version. Here is the song completely in Chavacano, the Zamboangueño dialect.

I could listen to this over and over. It's just so beautiful sounding, even if the matter is a bit sad.

Tagalog resource - Basic Tagalog by Aspillera

Early in my Tagalog language journey, I would search for any resource to help me learn the language better. One of the things I liked to do was frequent the local bookstore. In Manila, there is a chain called National Bookstore. It was in one of the National branches that I found my first Tagalog textbook.

The book was Basic Tagalog: For Foreigners and Non-Tagalogs by Paraluman S. Aspillera. It is still in print – now in its second edition. The book was still in the first edition when I purchased it and it helped me get a bit of a grasp on Tagalog more than I realized at the time. Unfortunately, the book was a bit grammar-oriented and my understanding of grammar was too basic to really get more from it. Later when I decided to resume my Tagalog journey, I purchased the second edition; from this point on, I'll be referring to the second edition, although most of what I say also applies to the first (which was still in print in 2012).

Regarding its strengths, Basic Tagalog covers the basic nouns, adjective, verb, and sentence formations quite well. The lessons seem to be progressive, beginning with sounds and syllabification, so it would not be wise to skip around, unless one already is at or past the advanced beginner stage. The book provides a brief history of Tagalog and of its rise to become the basis of Filipino. The Tagalog words include pronunciation aids (accent marks) that can be helpful to a true beginner. There are a number of example sentences and exercises to help learn the material. The second edition comes with a CD that provides pronunciation of words and an audio version of the lessons; it also includes an answer key to the exercises. Most helpful in the second edition are the appendices. They include essential information, common expressions, and thematic dialogues that can be a better representation of conversational Tagalog than what is sometimes presented in the book.

There are also a number of drawbacks. First, too much is done with sentences using "ay" when this is primarily used in literary or formal situations. The preface appears to imply that the focus in the book is on spoken Tagalog. So then is odd that sentences with "ay" appear often. Probably the worst aspect of this book is that even though the grammar covers all the basics, it does not cover some essential information to some of the grammatical concepts. For instance, napaka- adjectives take a ng phrase/pronouns, but this is mentioned nowhere. And the biggest sin is that the book fails to mention that pseudo verbs like gusto can be used with nouns and that the ng marker and the ang marker play a role there. Instead of mentioning this, the book acts as though pseudo verbs are used only with other verbs. Of course, the book could have mentioned those things above and I just overlooked it. But considering that I use a number of resources together, I looked pretty closely and could not find any of those things. Lastly, the accent markings can be incomplete or inconsistent so a learner should have a good dictionary and consult that whenever the audio appears to depart from the accent markings in the text.

In my view, Basic Tagalog is a very limited resource. In addition to the strengths mentioned, the text is really easy to read and the presentation is nice. A lot of the book is easy to understand. However, the drawbacks require that a beginning learner of Tagalog learn from the book with the help of a native speaker and/or use more updated books.

Overcoming hearing sickness in language learning

I'm now well past over 100 hours of hearing Tagalog on a consistent basis.

Most of it has been music, but I've also listened to a bunch of short dialogues looped over and over. During the weekends I don't want my favorite teleserye because it plays only on weekdays.

I've found myself having a sort of hearing sickness lately. It's like I just get tired of hearing the language.

In a way I think it's a good thing. It means I'm getting a lot of exposure in my ears. So what do I do when I start to experience hearing sickness? I've found a few things helpful.

• Stop listening.
• Change the content type.
• Change my non-language activity.

Most of the time I enjoy hearing/listening to the language. It doesn't bother me to have the language playing in the background constantly. So when I get the hearing sickness bug I just make a slight tweak to whatever I'm doing at the time.

Stop actively listening to the language. I just let it whatever is playing continue to play without devoting any brain power to it.

Change the content type. If music is playing, I might switch to another song or try to find a new song. Or I might change it to the news. On Spotify the commercials are in English so that can give me a quick breather from hearing Tagalog all the time.

Change up the non-language activity when sickness bug comes. If I'm reading a book or something and I start to feel the hearing sickness bug I might go and surf the web. Or I might go for a walk. Or I might sleep. Sometimes just changing the activity helps the bug pass.

Anyway, the hearing sickness bug isn't really a distraction as it is a discomfort. That's to be expected as I expand my comfort zone to include being able to handle Tagalog in my ears constantly, which would be the case if I was in a place like the Philippines.

Tagalog resource - SEAsite

The Center for Southeast Asian Studies at Northern Illinois University maintains SEAsite, which hosts a number of Southeast Asian language learning resources. When I first began my Tagalog learning journey, this was one of the first resources I found on the web. This was back sometime in 1998-1999 so, as you can see, the site has been around for a long time.

The Tagalog SEAsite is a fairly complete tool for beginners and perhaps early intermediate learners. It has a number of resources, some of those being an online Tagalog dictionary, lessons grouped according to themes, and cultural essays. My interest was always in the grammar, not to try to understand the complexities of the language but to understand the building blocks of creating words/phrases/sentences.

The Tagalog SEAsite grammar was useful to me as a beginner, although at the time I didn't really understand enough about grammar in general to fully appreciate it. After having experience with other Tagalog learning books, the Tagalog SEAsite grammar seems to provide the typical grammatical content that other resources provide. The nice thing about this grammar is that it is online and any particular grammatical concept is fairly easy to find.

That said, I did not (and do not) make frequent use of the grammar or site. For one, the presentation does not facilitate easy reading. It is not engaging either. The regular text seems a bit small and webpage background feels is similar in color to highlighted words that they get drowned out. The charts, however, present grammatical information/concepts nicely.

Ultimately, I think the Tagalog SEAsite page is worth exploring for a learner of Tagalog. I didn't find it so useful but others might. The site appears to get updates every so often so it might worth returning to the site occasionally to see if any updates make the resource more useful.

Sampling other Philippine languages - Chavacano

Filipino, or Tagalog upon which it is based, is the probably the most well-known language of the Philippines. But the Philippines has over 160 languages the last time I checked. Some of them like Cebuano, Ilocano, and others have a relatively large group of speakers. A lot people think that the languages in the Philippines are dialects but that's not correct. The Philippines has actual languages, and I assume that there are also dialects of languages, which would probably put Philippine languages and its variants at 200 or more. Pretty neat.

Anyway, I just came across a song done in Chavacano, another Philippine language spoken mainly in the Zamboanga region of Mindanao. Chavacano seems to me like a Filipino form of Spanish. Here is the song, which also has parts in Tagalog. It's called "Porque" by Maldita.

I don't understand much of it except the few Tagalog words. But it's beautiful (although the subject matter sounds a bit sad). I love it. I wouldn't mind learning Chavacano one of these days.

Hearing milestone #1

100 hours.

Yep, I hit that mark today. Over the past week I have constantly heard Tagalog for 100 hours and counting.

Those hours make a difference. I've noticed that I can pick out more words, regardless of whether I know what they mean. But many of them I do know.

So what have I been hearing for the past 100 hours? Mainly the same songs looped over Spotify, lots of sentences that I have found from learning material, and shows on TFC (The Filipino Channel) via the app.

I started listening to sentences over and over and over, but then slowly music edged itself in there. I find myself catching more words and phrases in the songs, often singing right along with them. The blocks of words/phrases I'm picking up are getting longer, both as to what I can hear and what I sing along with. I am also picking up many words in songs that are new to me.

At my place of worship are a lot of Filipinos. When I was at church tonight I noticed that I understood a whole lot more of what they were saying. It was almost like their speech was slowing down without their needing to slow it down for me.

I would almost say that this is an accomplishment. But really it's not. I actually didn't do anything to improve my hearing of the language. I simply just surrounded my ears with the language and let the audio do the work.

Hear, hear, hear...always be hearing.

Overcoming perfectionistic tendencies in language learning

Perfectionism.

That's something I struggle with. When learning something, I want it to be perfect. I want it to be exactly as it should be, with no deviation in any direction. And, of course, I want it to be perfect at it quickly as possible – the first try all the better.

Unfortunately, that is not how language learning works. Taking a cue from children, they are overly comfortable making language mistakes. Mistakes are part of the process.

As an adult language learner, my perfectionism can get me hung up on one thing for a long time. I have to be aware of this and find ways to mitigate it.

These are the things I keep in mind as I go about the active parts of my language learning:

• Small, winnable events compound over time.
• The time spent on an activity is less important than the quantity of that activity.
• Mistakes are part of the process.
• Using perfect material helps keep mistakes to a minimum.
• Celebrate every win.

The ideas are simple.

Do something I know I can accomplish in a short period of time (usually 5 minutes or so). This might be reviewing a few flashcards, listening to a song, or watching a video clip. Then do these things throughout the day. Having a few minutes of Tagalog activities throughout the day adds up.

Don't get caught up in getting everything right the first time. If I'm doing flashcards, I don't worry if I don't get the definition within the first few tries. I keep trying over time. If I'm doing imitation, I don't fret if the sentence is too much of a tongue twister at the time. I break the sentence into just a few words and work on only those words until I get them. If I'm listening to a song, I don't worry if I don't catch everything immediately; I just find a really small section I want to really figure out what is said and then I work only on that section. Later I'll add more to those sections to create the whole. But I don't drive myself crazy trying to get everything down immediately and at once. I accept the mistakes in my memory, in my tongue, and in my ears.

Use perfect material. I just use perfect native material used in everyday conversation that I don't need to check whether it is correct or not, too literary or too colloquial, or whatever. I just use it. Imitate, memorize, analyze – whatever. One less thing to fret about.

Be grateful and inspired when I do get it. If I find myself remembering the idea/meaning of a word/phrase/sentence more quickly, being able to imitate something with less difficulty, or even just pick out more words, I celebrate those moments. Then I use them to inspire me to keep going. Moments like those will probably become few and far between as I progress but I hope that is the result of having built the language up in my memory, tongue, and ears than it is just me not getting it. We shall see...and I'm excited to find out.

Making a Tagalog environment

70 hours.

Yes, that's about how long I've been hearing Filipino. Over the last 3 days.

I think it's important to get the ear really open up to hear and distinguish the various sounds of Filipino – the words, the pronunciation, the accentuation. The way I'm doing this is through massive listening. I found this method when I came across AJATT (All Japanese All The Time) one day.

I have podcasts, movies, teleserye, music going on the background all the time. This constant state of hearing Filipino has helped significantly. I now notice many more words in the language than I could 3 days ago. I expect this to continue throughout the weeks, months, and years that I spend in the language.

Where do I get these resources to create this environment?

For music, I use Spotify. I have made a playlist of all the Filipino songs I know and continually add ones that I come across if I like them. I always thumbs down the English songs when Spotify tries to interfere with its lousy algorithm.

For movies, I have a couple that I bought a while ago. So far they are My Big Love (Toni Gonzaga and Sam Milby) and Every Breath U Take (Angelica Panganiban and Piolo Pascual). I should probably get new ones. Eventually...

For news and teleserye, I use the TFC app. At this point I'm getting addicted to Pusong-Ligaw as I'm finding the subplots interesting. I always watch TV Patrol for the news.

As I end this post, "Huli Na Ang Lahat" by Silent Sanctuary just came on so I'll have a listen to that. Ingat!

Welcome

Hi everyone,

This blog is about my Filipino language journey. I have seen a number of blogs started by a lot of learners of Filipino and most of the blogs appear to be inactive. I intend to share everything that I am doing to learn this beautiful language. I hope that this can serve as a resource to Filipino language learners everywhere.

Thanks for following!