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.
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment