What makes Tagalog Language Complex to Learn?

What makes Tagalog Language Complex to Learn?

Before starting to learn Tagalog Language. It is also important to know what makes Tagalog complex. Basically, you will find the reason for your problem first before finding a solution.

These are the few reasons that makes a Non-Tagalog speaker confuse in learning Tagalog Language:

1.   We have different sentence structures but have the same meaning.

For example:

But if you look at the advantage, Several sentence structures means that you have a lot of choices of which sentence structure you will use. it is flexible and you will never go wrong whatever sentence structure you will use. The word order does not matter as long as you put the correct article/marker/preposition. Which will lead me to the next reason of what makes the Tagalog language complex?

2.   In English, there are prepositional words inserted in the sentence. Please see the figure below for the example.

But in Tagalog, There are words that inserted in the sentence which have multiple functions. It could serve as a particle, as a conjunction, as a preposition and those functions, in some cases, conjuncts (join) with the word in a certain condition.

Please see figure below for the example conjunction, marker, particle and preposition:

Though Tagalog language and English language differ in this aspect. The said both languages are the same in a manner of identifying

• Which is the subject, verb and object in a sentence?

•  Which is the subject and which is the predicate in the sentence?

• English and Tagalog Alphabet are mostly similar, The only difference is that Tagalog Alphabet have “ñ” and “ng”,

• In pronunciation, almost the same, the only difference is that Tagalog Vowels produces only 5 sounds unlike in English that produces 20 sounds., And we have “nga” and "ñ" sounds that does not exist in English.

3.   There are words in Tagalog that have the same spelling, but different sounds and different meanings.

Please see below for  example:

• hapon/Hapon could mean afternoon and Japan
  hapon that means afternoon has a longer sounds in a syllable ‘ha”
  Hapon that means Japan has a shorter sounds in a syllable “ha”

• gabi could mean evening/night and taro
  gabi that means evening/night has a shorter sounds in a syllable ‘ga”
  gabi that means taro has a longer sounds in a syllable ‘ga”

4.   There are words that have different spelling but the same meaning when translated in English.

Please see below for example:

• Ngunit means but (Often used in Formal style of speech)

• Pero means but (Often used in Informal style of speech)

5.   There are words that have the same spelling and sounds but have different meanings when translated in English.

Please see below for example:

• buwan could mean moon and month.

•  Linggo could mean sunday and week.

• gabi could mean night or evening.

How does a Tagalog native speaker know the meaning of the word talking about? 

The answer is, the native speaker clarify which word you are talking about or sometimes, if it is obvious in the context that a specific word is the one you are talking about. That’s how we understand the meaning.

Example, There is news about the solar eclipse. Obviously, the “buwan” talking in the news is about the moon and not the month.

6.There are Tagalog words that have literal translation in English but could mean different when we translate the meaning of the word

Please see below for example:

Mabuhay literal translation is Alive but Tagalog native speaker means “Welcome”

(This is often used to welcome tourists who have just arrived in the Philippines for a tour.)

Walang anuman literal translation is "nothing whatever" but native speaker means when saying this is “You’re welcome”.

(This is often used to respond when someone says “Thank you”

The above lists are just the common lists of what makes a Tagalog language complex to learn.

Now, That you are aware about the complexity of my native language. It’s now easier for you to identify among the lists which you need to focus on. I highly recommend that you focus on learning the sentence structure first while learning different Tagalog Vocabularies. Why? This is because, upon learning sentence structure, you will eventually expose yourself to different particles and its functions to the sentence structure you are learning. In addition to that, while learning sentence structure, you will also get to expose yourself in learning different Tagalog vocabularies and its meaning.

As you go along the journey of learning Tagalog, you will realize that Tagalog is an interesting language to learn and not that difficult to comprehend.

I hope this helps!