Get Off Your Butts... Learn Tagalog!!!

[bows00]

6 hours ago, Dave Hounddriver said:

You seem to have stirred up a few people with your suggestion that it is lazy not to learn the native language.  I have suggested to you that there are 2 official languages here, and a search on Google shows me that: "Hawai'i is also the only American state to have two official languages, Hawaiian and English."  So I have to ask you if you have learned Hawaiian?  I ask because your profile says that is where you live now.

Have you ever been to Hawaii?  If I had to guess, I bet at least 99% of the population can't speak fluent Hawaiian here.  But my point is this - if my SO, family and friends spoke Hawaiian as their main language, then yes, I would take the time and effort to learn Hawaiian.

I only speak from my experience which I think I should have mentioned earlier...  My mother is originally from Japan.  She lived in Hawaii for the past 50 years and did not bother to learn and study English - and yes, she can get around with the basics, but whenever the family gets together, she doesn't have the ability to engage in our conversations.   That is when I decided I will never be in that situation...

And maybe "lazy" is too harsh here, and I apologize if I offended anyone reading this thread... 

[Dave Hounddriver]

42 minutes ago, bows00 said:

Have you ever been to Hawaii?  If I had to guess, I bet at least 99% of the population can't speak fluent Hawaiian here.

No, but my point is:  You were telling people who live in Phiippines that we should learn Tagalog and I am trying to illustrate how pompous it sounds to tell someone who actually lives there what he should do when you do not live there yourself.  Thank you for putting the "exclamation point" on my statement.

You will find a similar situation here. I cannot give the actual percentage and I do not like to reach out and grab an imaginary number like you did but I am quite comfortable saying the that the majority of residents in Philippines speak a language other than (and perhaps in addition to) Tagalog.  So in a decade of living here I have never had a need to speak Tagalog and never had anyone speaking Tagalog around me.  It is true there are some TV channels where I cannot understand what is said.  Those are usually English channels where the volume is muffled and I am a little bit deaf.  Oops.  Thank goodness for subtitles.

42 minutes ago, bows00 said:

And maybe "lazy" is too harsh here

Yeah.  That's probably what got me riled.  Perhaps others felt the same.  'Nuff said.

Edited November 17, 2017 by Dave Hounddriver

[OnMyWay]

People are very different when it comes to learning languages.  To some, it comes easy.  Others, not so easy.

Me, not so easy.  In high school, I took 2 years of Spanish, barely passing but learning the basics.  I also was not good at English!   I mean, I was good at reading and writing, but learning grammar rules bored the heck out of me so English was not something I studied much.

So then I lived in Germany for 4 years.  The company paid for German lessons.  My instructor was an arrogant German part-time DJ, and spent most of his time telling me stories.  I guess that was his idea of teaching me conversational Germlish.  I was bored of him quickly.  Anyway, the area I lived in, Bonn, was formerly the capital of West Germany so English was widely spoken.

By contrast, I know many people who pick up on language very quickly.  My boss in Germany was also my boss in Florida, and moved to Germany 6 months before I did.  While he was preparing to move, he started learning German.  A month after he accepted the job he was already semi-fluent.  I think that was his 5th language and while in Europe he picked up Italian too.

I think it helps when a child learns more than one language while young.  It keeps the brain flexible in the language area.

I would love to learn Tagalog but I don't think it is in the cards for me to learn more than a few words.  My wife's family are all fluent in English so no problems there.

Edited November 17, 2017 by OnMyWay
Correct bad grammar

[jimeve]

The official language of the Philippines is English, the national language is Tagalog. 

[hk blues]

21 minutes ago, jimeve said:

The official language of the Philippines is English, the national language is Tagalog. 

The site i read said 2 Official languages - English and Tagalog. I don't think English is considered as the only official language other than by locals who want to appear sophisticated.

[Jack Peterson]

14 minutes ago, hk blues said:

I don't think English is considered as the only official language

So, why are are ALL official forms written in ENGLISH  OH! I hear, just look my friend 

[Dr. Shiva]

It depends also on the language how easy it can be learned. Spain as an example is easier to learn than french. Another thing is the availability of good learning material. For tagalog there are many around while for the other Philippine languages it looks bad till nonexisting. I want to learn the basics of Cebuano and have issues finding good learning material. 

[Jack Peterson]

Just now, Dr. Shiva said:

I want to learn the basics of Cebuano and have issues finding good learning material. 

Doc, I have been her nigh on 15 years and still looking, Learning from the SO is NOT the way to go, believe me 

[MikeB]

1 hour ago, bows00 said:

If I had to guess, I bet at least 99% of the population can't speak fluent Hawaiian here.

Not a bad guess. It's actually around 0.1%. Interesting that the Hawaiian language was banned in schools and govt after it was made a US territory.  

But that's no excuse, get off your lazy butt kēia manawa (now)!

 

[hk blues]

14 hours ago, Jack Peterson said:

So, why are are ALL official forms written in ENGLISH  OH! I hear, just look my friend 

Article xiv, section 7 of the Constitution states that Filipino is the national language of the Philippines, with English as the second. The other 'dialects' are defined as auxiliary. Clearly English is not defined or considered as the only official language.

Why forns are in English. For practice reasons I'd imagine. Completely irrelevant to the question.

I've no idea what the final sentence means - too cryptic for a Saturday morning.