Filipino/Tagalog
Alpabeto: Alphabet
We do have a pre-Spanish writing system called the Baybayin. It is a syllabic writing system so each character corresponds to a syllable (typically a consonant + a vowel)
No one ever uses this now, but here's a photo of the chart for the sake of showing it:
The Roman alphabet modified for Tagalog
A B K D E G H I L M N NG Ñ O P R S T U W Y
Word order:
The canonical word order is
Verb-Subject-Object. However you can change the word order as long as have the correct case markers preceding the nouns that they belong with.
Pangngalan: Nouns
There's 3 basic cases:
direct, indirect and oblique
Direct: This is the absolutive case. In essence it is the subject.
Indirect: This is the ergative, accusative and genitive cases. This is in essence the object and possessive.
Oblique: This is the locative case. This is basically the case that marks location or the equivalent of prepositions in English.
Chart of markers
Direct: ang (common singlular equivalent of 'the one'),
yong (common singular, equivalent of 'this one')
ang mga (common plural, equivalent of 'the ones'),
yong mga (common plural, equivalent of 'these ones'),
si (personal singular marks people as subjects),
sina (personal plural, marks people as subjects).
Indirect: ng (common singular equivalent of 'of the one')
niyong (common singular, equivalent of 'of this one')
ng mga (common plural, equivalent of 'of the ones')
niyong mga (common plural, equivalent of 'of these ones)
ni (personal singular, equivalent of 'of he/she/it' or 'by him/her/it')
nina (personal plural, equivalent of 'of/by them')
Oblique: sa (common singular, equivalent of 'to/in/at/on this')
sa mga (common plural, equivalent of 'to/in/at/on these')
kay (personal singular, equivalent of 'to/in/at/on him/her/it)
kina (personal plural, equivalent of to/in/at/on them)
Side note:
For the linguistics junkies out there: Tagalog has Philippine alignment which is almost like a mix between nominative case system and ergative case system. That should clear out a lot of things for those wondering why the heck the language is formatted like that.
Examples:
Sa bahay ni Reggie (Oblique, house, of, Reggie) (In Reggie's house)
Ang pangalan ko ay Reggie (Direct marker, name, mine, existential marker, Reggie) [my name is Reggie]
Kakain tayo (Will-eat we) [We will eat]
Ang pinagkainan natin (Direct marker, the place where the eating has occurred, by us) [The place where we ate]
Articles:
There are no articles in Tagalog, definiteness (the) and indefiniteness (a, an) are marked by the voice of the sentence.
Active sentences: definite
Passive sentence: indefinite
Panghalip: Pronouns
Direct:
Ako (I)
Ikaw (You)
Sya (He/She/It)
Tayo (We)
Kayo (You plural)
Sila (They)
non-existent in English: Kata (1st person dual, like saying 'we, us two'), Kami (1st person plural exclusive, like saying 'we, just us')
Indirect:
Ko (of me, mine, by me)
Mo (of you, your, by you)
Niya (of him/her/it, his/her/its, by him/her/it)
Ninyo (of you plural, your, by you)
Natin (of us, our, by us)
Nila (of them, their, by them)
non-existent in English: Nita (1st person dual, like saying 'by/of/ us two'), Namin (1st person plural exclusive, like saying 'by/of just us')
Oblique:
Akin (to/at/in/on me, mine)
Iyo (to/at/in/on you, your)
Kanya (to/at/in/on him/her/it, his/her/its)
Atin (to/at/in/on us, our)
Inyo (to/at/in/on you plural, your)
Kanila (to/at/in/on them, their)
non-existent in English: Kanita (1st person dual, like saying to/at/in/on 'us two'), Atin (1st person plural exclusive, like saying to/at/in/on 'just us').
Example
Sentence that translates to English very easily:
Ginuhit ko ang mukha niya sa kwaderno ko (Drew, by me, direct marker, face, of her, oblique, notebook, of me) [I drew his/her/its face on my notebook]
The grammatical subject matches the agent, like how it is in English. However that's not always the case
Sentence that doesn't translate easily to English:
Ang mukha nya ay ginuhit ko sa kwaderno ko (Direct marker, face, his/her/it, existential marker, drew, by me, oblique, notebook, of me) [I drew his/her/its face on my notebook].
Note: the grammatical subject of the sentence is the 'face' not the 'I' which is still the agent in this sentence. So it's a bit confusing. As long as you separate the concepts of grammatical subject and thematic agent, you will not have a hard time.
Pandiwa: Verbs
This is the most complicated thing in Tagalog. Pandiwa literally means the 'essentializer' it is not necessarily an action, it just has to give the sentence an 'essence'. Verbs in Tagalog do more than just indicate actions.
Little note:
There is no verb 'to be' in Tagalog. What we have is an existential marker,
ay. In translations you will see
ay translated as the verb 'to be' in English.
Easy stuff:
There are 3 verb tenses:
Completed, Progressive and Contemplative, basically past, present and future. However it has very different connotations. When using the contemplative/future tense, you are literally saying that you are thinking of doing the action.
Hard Stuff:
In English and many Indo-European languages, the verb ending changes when you conjugate a verb. Conjugation is basically suffixational.
However, in Tagalog, you have
prefixes (comes before the verb),
infixes (comes within the verb),
circumfixes (surrounds the verb), and
suffixes (comes after the verb)
Another different thing:
Unlike in Indo-European languages where verbs can only be conjugated on the basis of the grammatical subject, verb conjugation in Tagalog is triggered by the THEMATIC: agent (who does the action), object (the thing receiving the action is being done to), benefactive (the thing receiving the action), locative (where the action takes place), instrument (the instrument used to do the action) and reason (the reasoning behind the action) You conjugate a verb based on the function you want it to perform, the essence that you want it to give in the sentence. The grammatical subject has nothing to do with the conjugation of the verb.
Here's the chart:
Luckily there is no such thing as an irregular verb in Tagalog! Also, even though you conjugate based on the the thematic roles, you don't have to worry about the number of actors/object/etc since it's all the same for everything. You just have to worry about the essence of what you're trying to say.
Let me do 1 verb for you: isip (to think)
.
Example
Inisip ko ng mabuti (thought, I, indirect marker, well) [I thought hard]
Note: In this sentence, the verb conjugation is triggered by the actor since it is the person's thought that is being emphasized.
Inisipan ko sya ng masama (thought, I, him/her/it, indirect marker, bad) [I thought badly of her]
Note: In this sentence, the verb conjugation is triggered by the object since it is the the object of thought that is being emphasized.
Emphasis changes based on what you want.
Cool thing:
You can conjugate English verbs using this same format!
You can make a noun in to its action form and conjugate it like that. For example, instead of saying Eat a mango, you can say mag-manga ka, which literally means 'to mango'
Words
Nouns:
Puno - a tree
Lalaki - a boy
Babae - a girl
Pabo - a duck
Aso - a dog
Pusa - a cat
Bahay - a house
Bintana - a window
Kanta - a song
Bato - a stone
Kuchilyo - a knife
Bansa - a country
Bayan - a town
Adjectives: These are pretty much just modified verbs in Tagalog
Mabuti, maayos- good
Masama - bad
Maganda- pretty
Mayumi - beautiful
(ma)Pangit - ugly
Malaki - big
Maliit - small
Maingay - loud
Matahimik - quiet
Colors:
Pula - red
Bughaw/asul - blue
Dilaw - yellow
Luntian/berde - green
Itim - black
Puti - White
Kayumanggi - brown
Lila - purple
Rosa - pink
Kahel - orange
Prepositions:
Kasama ng/ni- with
Walang- without
Pagkatapos, tapos - after
Bago - before
Sa ilalim - under
Sa taas- over
Sa harap - in front of
Sa likod - behind
Sa paligid - around
Sa pagitan - between
Months:
Enero
Pebrero
Marso
Abril
Mayo
Hunyo
Hulyo
Agosto
Setyembre
Oktobre
Nobiembre
Disyembre
Days:
Lunes
Martes
Myerkoles
Hwebes
Biernes
Sabado
Linggo (the only Tagalog one still used)
Numbers (non-money ; money)
1 Isa ; uno
2 Dalawa ; dos
3 Tatlo ; tres
4 Apat ; kwatro
5 Lima ; singko
6 Anim ; sais
7 Pito ; syete
8 Walo ; ocho
9 Syam ; nuwebe
10 Sampu ; dyis
11 Labingisa ; onse
12 Labingdalawa ; dose
13 Labingtatlo ; trese
14 Labingapat ; katorse
15 Labinglima ; kinse
16 Labinganim ; disisais
17 Labingpito ; disisyete
18 Labingwalo ; disiocho
19 Labingsyam ; disinuwebe
20 Dalwampu ; bente
Useful words and sentences:
Ooy, hi, musta (Hi)
Sige (informal bye), paalam (Bye)
Kumusta ka? (How are you?)
Ok naman (I'm fine)
Anong pangalan mo? (What's your name?)
Ako si (My name is ...)
Taga saan ka? (Where do you come from?)
Ako'y taga ... (I come from ...)
Nagtatagalog ka? (Do you speak Tagalog)
Oo, nagtatagalog ako (Yes, I speak Tagalog)
Hindi, Hindi ako nagtatagalog (No, I do not speak Tagalog)
Mahal kita (I love you)
Gusto ko ... (I love ...)
Di ko gusto ... (I hate ...)
Gusto ko ... (I like ...)
Punyemas, paano ba magayon ng pandiwa sa Tagalog? (How the hell can one conjugate Tagalog verbs?)
Ang Tagalog ay marihap pagaralan (Tagalog is difficult to master)
Ay nako (I give up)
Another cool fact about Tagalog, since you can turn nouns into verbs, you can turn celebrities into verbs for sake of humor. Everybody does it, it stemmed off the LGBT community in the Philippines, it is just a fun thing to do and everybody seem to like it
For example to say "It's raining outside" you can say "Jumujulanis Moreisette sa labas" since "Umlan" sounds like "Alanis"
2.
Here's a video of a Philippine news show, so you can hear the standard Tagalog (Filipino)
