Yes, back by no particular demand and following up to Super beginner Tagalog (Filipino language), I’m recording here some new words I may have heard or read in a book since then.
bagong – new
I first read this in Nobody Speaks Perfectly Tagalog – English [Kindle Edition],
and the next day was able to understand a whole sentence including it
in a Western Union poster (something about “This is your new wallet”,
some kinda cash card deal..).
Reinforced last night by my kuya, RDR, when he was the only one to greet me with:
Maligayang Bagong Taon! – Happy New Year!
As he was the only one to greet me with that, I’m feeling a bit
lonely here in PI and need to make some local friends after already 3
days here…
ito – this
As seen in such phrases as:
magkano ito? – how much is this?
ako/ko – I
I’m quite scared of how my brain will deal with the different grammar rules for Filipino, such as when to use ako or ko, but I’m assuming the more I can get actual conversation practice, it will make more sense… that goes for all the ng‘s and mga‘s, too, which I think I can at least pronounce…
OK, now for some community recommendations from my last post, I’ll take the ones I’ve heard before:
gatas – milk
Thanks to my Filipina friends in Hong Kong and the fact I only had gatas or Tanduay in my house to drink (see this post to learn the fate of my Tanduay bottle…)
hindi – not
This one was easy to remember from a book, denotes negativity,
reminds me of Bollywood (apologies if I got the ethnicities wrong!)
bayan – town
balik – return
I had heard this one as balikbayan, I think at Manila
airport, there was a counter for OFW (Overseas Foreign Workers), perhaps
it was written here..? Can someone tell me if babalik is the shortened version of balikbayan? Anyway, balikbayan seems to be synonymous with OFW’s returning home. If you start to type “balikb…” into Google, it’s auto-complete suggests balikbayan box New York, balikbayan box Honalulu, etc…
tubig – water
I haven’t remembered this one yet, but have heard it a few times…
I’ll be careful not to mistake it as English “too big”, especially as a
white guy in asia..
kamusta (ka)? – how are you?
Very easy to remember from the Spanish ¿Cómo estás?
salamat (po) – Thank you
I’ve kind of never used this, I would feel so like a tourist using
this anywhere that people obviously speak English (99% of Manila??) Once
I have a few more phrases under my belt though, I will be fine to throw
it out there, hoping to catch a response in Tagalog to get a
conversation started…
saan? – where?
This one has another hint inside, which is sa, used as a
“particle”(?) for direction, similar to に(ni) in Japanese, or 在(sai/hai)
in Mandarin/Cantonese. Let’s see the same particle in a sentence that
will introduce another word:
gusto ko pumunta sa tubig – I want to go to the water
Maybe not a common phrase, but I wanted to throw water in there and introduce 2 more words:
gusto – want/like
pumunta/punta – go
This is where it gets tricky for me… punta supposedly means direction, but then the verb changes for each tense here:
Saan ang punta mo? – Where you going?
Saan ka pupunta? – Where are you going?
Pumunta ka ba kahapon? – Did you go yesterday?
That’s too much for me to remember the rules just yet.
ano/anong – what?
A Filipina co-worker taught me this one, thanks! I kept hearing her
say it over the phone (work calls, I’m sure!). This also changes
deepening on the following word’s first letter, if it is a vowel or
consonant, I believe.
A lot of those last ones were from a random visitor, who was actually looking for info on my WordPress plugin!
To wrap up, a couple of verbs I’ve heard, but don’t know how to
properly conjugate. I’ll pay them a conjugal visit in the future,
perhaps…
nagluluto – cooking
baboy – pork
I was trying to be clever and typed nagluluto ay baboy into
Google translate, it told me I was this clever: “cooks are breeding”.
Seems “pork” has same connotations in Tagalog as English, hehe!
Actually, I’m out of verbs, just this last phrase:
anong oras na – what time is it?
The na and maybe ka seem similar to Japanese for making something a question, i.e. xxxxxx ka na?
OK, a bit of a long post, seems I’ve remembered a few more words in
the last couple of days. Could really use some help with the grammar and
verbiage next round of comments!
