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Where to start? Advice for a newbie | ||
Tags: Tagalog | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| CindytheKana Newbie Philippines NoneRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 3332 days ago 22 posts - 29 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 1 of 20 31 March 2015 at 6:42am | IP Logged |
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I am a beginner in studying Tagalog and I just joined this forum. I was wondering where I should start?
I took 5 to 6 months of an official class using a textbook an a tutor. It helped some. But now I want to continue on my own. Just curious to gain advice from others on where you started in learning your new language? I do have the benefit of living in the country of the target language I am learning. And also my husband is fluent in the target language I am learning. And I have a local gal living with us who hardly speaks any English. All of these scenarios should be great helps. Just curious how to utilize them all and where to start? Thanks! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4509 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes  Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 2 of 20 31 March 2015 at 7:13am | IP Logged |
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Make a list of what you can do and what you can't do. Make it very concrete, like "I can
shop for clothes", but "I don't know how to express anger when someone wrongs me". Then choose which of all the problems you have is the one you can solve the quickest, then solve it. You will find problems come up along the way. Once they become pertinent, find solutions to tackle them. You'll find you'll know how to use certain grammatical structures correctly but some you'll flunk. Practise these structures. You may find you have a particular vocabulary hole - prepare a monologue on that topic and look up the words you need. Edited by tarvos on 31 March 2015 at 7:14am 6 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4711 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 3 of 20 31 March 2015 at 3:06pm | IP Logged |
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I don't know what's available for Tagalog, but I have generally advocated a input based approach. Some people here on HTLAL write about "massive input". The basic idea is that you take in a lot of the language, paying attention to meaning and structure when you can. Watch TV shows and films, read comics and books, listen to podcasts and music. In other words, replace your English media with your target language. It works well for a few reasons.
1. You are studying using interesting materials of your own choice, depending on what's available. Besides learning the language, you're learning about the culture, and will have interesting things to talk about when you reach a decent conversational level. 2. Using interesting material makes it easier to keep studying. Watching a single film won't do much for your language, but making a habit of watching films in Tagalog will. 3. The input will slowly build up a stock of regular phrases and expressions. Some HTLALers focus exclusively on native media as soon as they can. Others balance massive input with vocabulary and grammatical studies. I take the latter approach, because I think they each support the other. Here are a few points of advice: 1. Don't worry too much if you don't understand every word. At first you should be focusing on trying to understand the gist of whatever you read, watch or listen to. The hardest thing for a beginner is to let go of trying to get every word. (But see point 10). 2. Find media you'd enjoy even if you weren't learning the language. I'm sure you have DVDs with a Tagalog track or Tagalog subtitles. Watching a whole TV series can be a great thing, because you get used to the speech patterns of the characters. 3. If you can stomach them, children's books and easy readers can be a great place to start. Particularly if you find an easy reader with audio. 4. For most things, limit lookups. For example, only look up one word per page of a book. I used to look up 10 words per hour of a Hindi film. 5. Pick a book (or books) that you enjoy, and read it "intensively". This means look up every word (not necessarily on the first pass), and read it many times. I've done this with a film as well: watched it several times with subtitles, read the script carefully 3 times, then watched it again without any subtitles. 6. Practice "narrow" reading. This means reading several books in the same series, by the same author or on the same topic. This helps you get over the initial "hump" you get when you start a book. You can also practice narrow watching and listening. 7. Media translated into your target language will generally be easier to understand. They will be less likely to use unusual colloquialisms and vocabulary, unless the translation really needs it. 8. On the other hand, media produced in your target language will be a bit more natural, and will also be part of your cultural education. 9. When watching video produced in your target language, pay careful attention to body language, gestures and facial expressions. Here you will learn things you'd never pick up from a textbook. 10. When you are more advanced, instead of aiming for the gist or general meaning, pay careful attention to the structure. Once you understand most words, that's the time to pay attention to every little word. Just understanding is no longer enough, at this stage you want to take on the deeper structures. People who continue to listen for understanding often struggle with things like gender when they speak, because you can miss the little markers and still understand 100%. For reading, there should be times when you actually slow down a times and really think about what the language is doing. Just like speeding up for beginners, slowing down is difficult for many advanced students. That's my general approach. It's not a science, anyway. I just follow my interests and try to learn by doing things I enjoy. 7 persons have voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5177 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 4 of 20 31 March 2015 at 9:21pm | IP Logged |
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I suggest asking forum member Stelle. Send her a private message or ask her on her log. She is extremely helpful. She is learning Tagalog and has a spouse that speaks the language. she also has a language learning website www.tobefluent.com
5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5064 days ago 2237 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 5 of 20 31 March 2015 at 11:00pm | IP Logged |
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Welcome to the forum, CindytheKana! I'll second James29, the best person to help you here is Stelle. Stelle has combined her language study into one log now. It would also be a good idea to start a log yourself.
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| Nieng Zhonghan Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Antarctica Joined 3473 days ago 108 posts - 315 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Japanese*, Spanish, Galician Studies: Finnish, Icelandic, Armenian, Mongolian Studies: Old English, Russian, English, German, Korean, Mandarin | Message 6 of 20 01 April 2015 at 1:02am | IP Logged |
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Welcome to the forum, CindytheKana!
May I ask you which textbook have you used so far? How did you use it? How much time you have for your daily studies and what are your goals? I guess your main purpose should be improving your speaking skills, though it is not clear to me whether you need or want to learn how to read and write in Tagalog at certain degree in the near future. Let me comment a bit on your specific questions Objectively speaking, I would take notes on what you need in your daily life. I can give you some concrete examples. You will probably need to go to the supermarket, drugstore, hospital, restaurant, bookstores, bakery etc (specific) shop etc. at a certain point of your life by yourself; therefore, you can learn by understanding a couple of things related to those settings. What kind of words will you need in a drugstore, for instance? In this case, if I know nothing about the drugstore terminology (I mean, how to ask for a specific medicine you need), I would enlist a couple of words and present my ideas of what I need to know in order to successfully ask for a product, understand their basic words such as those related to payment (cash, credit card, debit card, prices) and work out a dialogue or even do a role play which prepares me this kind of conversation. It will be short, for sure, but enough to “survive” under needy circumstances. Results will be noticed once you go to the drugstore and do everything by yourself and you really use Tagalog; not allowing them (or pretending that) you don’t understand English at all will be interesting to see your progress. If the communication works, then, you can say that you have succeeded until a certain degree. This kind of approach is what I use for some languages, especially when I need to go abroad for traveling or working purposes and stay a couple of weeks, months or years in that (those) country (countries). When I go abroad, it means that I will need to speak my target language, but not necessarily be functionally in either reading or writing them. I start with solving my lack of vocabulary knowledge, instead of relying on “traveling guidebooks” which not necessarily helps me. It allows me to practice common structures of my target language by my own needs and based on what I definitely cannot do, ask, describe or even answer when I am asked etc. Use your husband targeting your particular weaknesses. You can start with very simple sentences such as “how much does it cost” (role play) by being a costumer and also the shop assistant. Ask him what are the most common words and expressions used in a specific situation whichever suits your current needs. I didn’t understand the relation between you and the gal in your house. I guess you can ask your husband to help you thinking about a functional dialogue related to cuisine, assuming that both of you and the gal are fond of cooking. You can learn how to cook something like “the 10 Philippines dishes you will usually not find in any restaurant” and learn how to cook them. You will need to know the vocabulary related to that situation. You may also try teaching how to cook some dishes from your home country (home town) which will demand from you the knowledge of specific verbs and nouns. Start with something easy (take not too long) and yummy so that everybody can appreciate the food. Just ask your husband to be aware about your pronunciation. Ask him whether you can be understood by most people with your speaking speed and accuracy (usage, etc). In case you are interested in some methods, I will leave here my impression, though you can adapt them to your learning routine and needs. 1 Teach Yourself Filipino (Tagalog) It turned out to be a reasonable choice as a secondary resource. Not bad for the money. Each lesson includes various exercises and dialogues, following a family living in the Philippines. In case you have a chance to borrow it from a library or something, you may study focusing mainly in the dialogues, though some exercises might be useful for you. I consider TY Filipino as a reasonable option as a secondary resource because you can use it few times per week, listening to the audio multiple times and getting used to the sentence structures and some expressions. It was helpful to have different exercises and the answers to those exercises at the end. 2 Elementary Tagalog: Tara, Mag-Tagalog Tayo! Come On, Let's Speak Tagalog! This is by far, a good textbook you may use with your husband and perhaps with the girl who live with you. The content is well organized. Basically In each unit there is a vocabulary list and sample dialogue, then short activities to reinforce comprehension. The activities are too short, but successfully completing them encourages the learner to continue, though it is not mandatory. You can skip them if you want. The grammar sections are concise and the terminology may be too academic for some newbies in language learning. The overall language in it is right up to date, so when I try something out on my Philippines’ acquaintances have never told me that it is grammatically correct, but with outdated phrases. You can take a look at this book in any library and ask your husband to confirm what I am saying concerning the selection of vocabulary. At least, for me, it is much more updated than 90% resources I have seen so far. Having two native speakers as learning partner would help you to answer questions about other usage of the words and also practice some drills (such as Question and Answers’ type, among others), but also practicing variations of the dialogues appearing on the textbook. I have noticed trying other Tagalog resources that Elementary Tagalog’s audio was at a good pace. It wasn’t too slow as in the Assimil with ease I have tried so far (a couple of languages). An acquaintance of mine said that the audio was too fast, though. As theoretically you are going to learn Tagalog without a professional teacher, I think this is one of the books you may consider purchasing there because the balance of reading and listening are really helpful. Is the Elementary Tagalog’s workbook mandatory? Well, I am not sure about your learning style and your main goals, but in case you are interested in… The workbook as the name says by itself, it provides a variety of activities to reinforce what you have learned on the textbook. For instance, there exercises for reading comprehension; transcript the audio; fill in the blank (missing words); match the words etc. I would not recommend self-study Tagalog learner’s purchasing this book because they might struggle with some questions, but since you have your husband to assist you, it might complement the textbook. 3 http://kalyespeak.com/ This website is not being updated anymore, but it contains audio (it was working in 2012...) translated into English. You can use it similarly to Assimil With Ease with shorter dialogues. 4 Tagalog for Beginners: An Introduction to Filipino, the National Language of the Philippines (MP3 Audio CD Included) Well, I would not recommend this book if you were going to study by yourself for two reasons. At the time I was taking a look on this textbook, I found out the audio too fast for someone learning from the scratch and without a tutor. Second, in the middle of my studies I have found out awful mistakes which I managed to find out that it was really a mistake. I found out more than 10 mistakes; therefore, native or advanced fluency speakers are required to help you because the book is well structured. I have sent an e-mail to the publisher, but I got no response unfortunately. Hopefully they have fixed them in the newer editions. 5. Essential Tagalog Grammar - A Reference for Learners of Tagalog In case you need a grammar, I can write about the one I used (and liked at most). It is very concise and clear grammar book. I think it is a good resource, though it is not mandatory assuming that your husband is capable of providing you any kind of explanation concerning the language structure and provide you good examples of the real usage. Just few remarks: I suggest you taking a look on Taglish and Englog materials (if they exist) and start figuring out what are the most common patterns being used in your region. You will definitely need to understand Taglish and Englog (code switching) in order to get into the speech spoken by local people, though this is my biased opinion taken from my own experiences while talking with native speakers from the Philippines. It reminds me the Singlish used by Singaporeans when I have been there. Anyway, Tagalog is an interesting language. Good luck in your studies! Edited by Nieng Zhonghan on 05 April 2015 at 6:48pm 7 persons have voted this message useful | |
| CindytheKana Newbie Philippines NoneRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 3332 days ago 22 posts - 29 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 7 of 20 01 April 2015 at 1:53am | IP Logged |
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Thank you everyone! These are all helpful!
The textbook I was using was a locally produced one and it followed the LAMP model. I think LAMP stands for Language Acquisition Made Possible? I liked the idea, but basically the material was written for someone who is able to spend full time devoted to learning, out of the house and in the community. I have three young boys (age 5 and under), so this method didnt work well for me as I am not able to leave the house and be immersed in the community. And also the dialogues werent always pertinent to what I needed to learn. I want to take language learning serious, but just trying to find a better method that works with my current lifestyle at the moment. The gal who lives with us is our helper. She helps with general cleaning, laundry and helps watch the kids. It is nice because she knows very little English, so she will let me struggle and pause and try to form sentences. I found because most Filipinos know English, even a little, it is hard to actually practice Tagaglog because people dont correct you or allow you to struggle. Instead they switch to English. So I am thankful for the gal who lives with us because now I have someone who will let me struggle. Although, culturally I dont think she would make a good language helper since I am technically her "employeer" I think it would make her feel acqward to correct me on my Tagalog. But she is someone who will speak to me and allow me to speak to her in Tagalog. I have another friend who is outgoing and is able to come over 1 or 2 times a week to help me practice. I like the media immersion method. It sounds interesting. We are just getting our TV set up this week. I actually really like Tagalog music. I find it interesting and fun! I will have to find some tv shows to watch too. QUESTIONN - so with the media method can I start now as a newbie? Is there a time that is too early or too soon to start this method? So far I can recognized pronouns and verbs and linkers when I listen to the language. But I dont understand everything, I can usually get the gist of the meaning of the sentence. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| CindytheKana Newbie Philippines NoneRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 3332 days ago 22 posts - 29 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 8 of 20 01 April 2015 at 1:59am | IP Logged |
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I am checking out Stelle's log now. What exactly is a log? For my own beneift to track my
progress? Can you ask questions on it and get feedback from others? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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