Tagalog Language Guide

Official language in
Philippines
Script
Latin

Where it's spoken

The Philippine Constitution names Filipino as the national language of the Philippines. For purposes of communication and instruction, it makes Filipino and, until otherwise provided by law, English the official languages, and the regional languages are the auxiliary official languages in the regions. Tagalog is the native tongue of the people in the Tagalog region on the northern island of Luzon. From a strictly linguistic point of view, Filipino and Tagalog are described as varieties or dialects of the same language that share a large body of vocabulary and have very similar grammatical structures. One of this app's cards, Hindi ako marunong mag-Filipino ("I can't speak Filipino"), notes that Filipino and Tagalog refer to the same language.

Sources

Script & pronunciation

The modern Tagalog language, also known as Filipino, is now primarily written in the Latin script. The traditional Tagalog script, Baybayin, is in limited use today. This app's Tagalog cards show the Tagalog text only; none of them carries a separate romanization.

Sources

Grammar essentials

The basic order of a Tagalog statement is predicate first, subject second, and the basic word order is verb-initial, as in Naiintindihan ko ("I understand"), which begins with the verb. Certain short words, including some pronouns (nominative and genitive ones) and question markers, normally occur immediately after the verb; when a negative word comes before the verb, these short words also come before the verb. To make a sentence negative, hindi is placed before it, and when the subject is a pronoun, that pronoun moves in front of the predicate and so follows hindi, as in Hindi ako marunong mag-Filipino ("I can't speak Filipino"). Yes–no questions are usually formed by inserting the question marker ba after the first full word of the sentence, as in Mayroon ba kayong bakanteng kwarto? ("Do you have any vacant rooms?"). The subject can also be moved in front of the predicate, with the inversion marker ay placed between the two, as in Ang pangalan ko ay ___ ("My name is ___").

Sources

Politeness & etiquette

A Stanford University guide on Filipino American older adults says that the word po, which conveys respect, is automatically added at the end of every sentence or phrase when speaking with an older or elderly person. This app's cards use po in many phrases, as in Salamat po ("Thank you"). The app's card for Ikaw ("You") advises using the polite kayo with elders or strangers, and its card for Oo ("Yes") gives Opo as the polite form, to use with elders and staff. The everyday greeting Kumusta ka? ("Hello / How are you?") uses ka, which the card describes as the informal singular "you".

Sources

Browse all TravelPhrases languages