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.
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.
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