Language Primer

Our Peace Corps Response orientation included about 45 minutes on language – not enough, but in the time allotted, we did cover enough basics to get started – pronunciation of vowels and consonants and common phrases. This was key, because Filipinos greet each other not with, “how are you?” but with, “where are you going?” You don’t really answer with where you are going (as in the U.S., where you don’t answer with how you really are) but with, “just there.” They also ask if you have eaten or what you are planning to eat – if I hadn’t been prepared for this I might find these questions a bit intrusive.

They also gave us a language book, and I’m slowly making my way through that – there are several ways to say the same thing (and depending on where in the sentence you put the nouns or adjectives there are different pronouns, and there are different pronouns for people vs. things). I’m trying to absorb these rules and then hoping that the book quickly gets into verb conjugation and then more vocabulary, but most of what I have learned and used so far I have learned from the handout of common phrases, Grace the homepartner, Hanna, or people at work, who give me words and phrases at the devotions and at lunch.

Here are some interesting Tagalog basics. I’ll talk more about language in other entries as warranted:
- Vowels (a, e, i, o, u) are pronounced as in Spanish, always – so some words in English will sound different in the Filipino accent. It actually makes things easier though, if you think about it – pronunciation is consistent!
- Consonants are always pronounced the same way as well. Given that and the English alphabet, it’s theoretically not as difficult to learn as many languages.
- Filipinos pronounce every syllable; as they pointed out to us, we really do slur and mumble our words! Words are pronounced as they are written. So if there are two vowels together, they will both be pronounced, separately.
- There is no letter “f” in Filipino – so sometimes they will pronounce “f” as “p” – for example, “Pilipino.” There are also no c, v and x. “K” is used for “c,” “b” for “v,” and “ks” for “x.”
- the “ng” sound is a unique one in Filipino, and it is pronounced differently at the beginning, middle and end of the word. It is also a word in itself, pronounced “nung,” meaning “of.” Otherwise it’s nasal with a slight tilde touch to it. I’m still working on it.
- Accents make different words out of words that are spelled the same, and sometimes make for glottal stops.
- It is not a tonal language, as many Southeast Asian languages are, but in general it is proper to speak softly.
- There are two words for “we” – one that includes the person being spoken to and one that doesn’t (interesting!).
- But there aren’t equivalents of “he” and “she” or “him” and “her” – all four of those are covered by the word “siya.” When people talk to me in English, they will often use “she” for a man and “he” for a woman; to them it’s the same.
- Perhaps my favorite word so far is yes, “Oo,” – that is, oh (short, with glottal stop) oh. To be polite, you would say, “Opo” (“po” is the equivalent of sir or ma’am). “Thank you,” the first phrase I try to learn wherever I go, is “salamat (po).”

“Taglish” is very common – it is usual to mix words from both languages in both casual and formal conversation. I don’t know if people realize they are doing it!