How hard do you think learning Tagalog is? - Page 2

FSI is geared towards monolingual Anglophones. So, the difficulty level would be geared towards them, and the fact that they are, compared to Asians, are more exposed to French. A lot of Americans take French (or Spanish) in highschool. So I guess that factors in.For Asians, the pronunciations in Tagalog is easier compared to American Anglophones. It takes a ton of effort from their side (Anglophones) to pronounce the a's, and e's closer to how native speakers pronounce it. It almost always sounds funny when Anglophones pronounce Tagalog words without giving proper pronounciation a thought.

@Bituingmaykinang I love how many pronounce Tagalog as Tagalick...

@AMBoy
Or "TAGaLO" ; )

The pronoun system and the fact that different verb forms are referred to as aspects, rather than tenses, confuse me. I have come to understand the concept of the Tagalog verb system, bit of course make mistakes on whether to use subject-focus vs. object-focus. I come from Spanish as a second language, and I think it’s much easier for indo-european language speakers to grasp the Romance language verb forms than those of Austronesian languages. Despite the difficulties, I find the Tagalog verb system to be super rad!Furthermore, when asking a Filipino person to elaborate on the verb system, they usually don’t get what is so difficult about this. I understand why though, because when someone is confused about English verbal forms, I don’t immediately get where the confusion comes from until I think critically about how goofy our verbal system may seem to a person learning English. Likewise with any new language I suppose!

@AMBoy I used to think Tagalog was supposed to be pronounced like the Girl Scout Cookies Tag-a-longs.

@akosikoneho If you already speak English and perhaps one Romance language, I think French is easier to learn. Practically every French word I’ve learned has a near-cognate with English or one of the Romance languages. Difficulty for me with French is the ambiguity in pronunciation vs. spelling. It’s all relative to your linguistic background, I suppose, so what you say is true.

How difficult is Tagalog = How long is a piece of string

@GuttermanKhan they're called aspects because it is common that the progressive aspect ("present tense") of a verb is used to describe/narrate an event in the past, and that the completed aspect("past tense") can also be used to say what you want to be done in the future.E.g.: Kahapon habang KUMAKAIN ako, dumating siya.The English for "kumakain" in this context would be "WAS eating". There's an indication of tense in the verb system, but Tagalog does not have this. The tense is implied outside of the verb system.In Tagalog, KUMAKAIN can also be used for "AM eating". Kumakain ako ng isda ngayon Another example:Magpunta tayo doon pagkatapos nating KUMAIN.Kumain is completed aspect("past tense") but obviously, the event has not yet taken place. But it indicates that "we should do this after we completed this action"The aspect would probably make more sense for those who have reached the advanced level.

English has aspect too. If tense is color, then aspect is shade. I ate, I've just eaten Kumain ako. Kaka kain ko (lang). .

@itsneiacard As long as you are consistent with your studies, I don't think it is that difficult. I use this site, youtube, and study guides to help me learn tagalog. It's also a tremedous help if you know a native speaker who can help you with pronunciation and grammar (I'm married to a pinay so I have that advantage).

I have found that learning really basic Tagalog is relatively straightforward - enough to make myself understood in simple sentences. The words are (pretty much) pronounced as they are written, there are no irregular verbs, no irregular plurals, the tenses (strictly speaking aspects) at a basic level are simple. You can spend a lifetime improving of course and that is when it gets complicated.
At a basic level, I have found that the main differences are the word order and the fact that the verbs 'to be' and 'to have' are usually not used. For English speakers, the entire vocabulary is of course new unlike French or German where there is considerable overlap.
And as a complete bit of trivia, I believe that the only Tagalog words that are in the English language are bundok and some people say yoyo.