Natives Feelings About Non-Tagalog Speaking Filipino

[Call me bubba]

Any updates or posts that the new members have to comment on? This is a good topic, :cheersty: THANKS JAKE & ART for your posts. :AddEmoticons04230:its very Eye-opening about the "adjustment" that 1 makes when they return

[billten]

OK get ready for the storm... ;-) IMO it will depend on where you decide to settle, stay out of Manila and you will be fine.In Manila i have found that if you try to engage Tagalog people in an English conversation, they think you are being 'suplada' and trying to talk down to them. They perceive English as an 'educated' language and do not comfortably converse as friends in it. In Cebu and many other places where Tagalog is not spoken, English is much more widely used (you hear it a lot more) and is used by a much wider population (most everybody can understand it). IME there does not seem to be a perception that English is a snobby language outside Manila.As an example, my wife speaks English as her first language and Cebuano as her second. She speaks almost no Tagalog. When she went to the UK embassy for her interview, the Tagalog clerk who checks the papers made her speak Tagalog even though she pleaded with him that she had no idea what he was saying. This IMO was an example of a 'you are not going to talk down to me' attitude from the clerk. I'm quite sure that he spoke some English, but to retain his authority, he refused to allow the conversation to occur in English as his was probably not as good as Krissy's and this would show off his 'lack of education'.As a side note, my lovely wife is called locally 'the foreigner' and even though she insists that she is Cebuano, i get better prices at the market. ;-)

[Jim Sibbick]

Your heading is about not being able to speak Tagalog.Are you aware that only about 20% of the population speak Tagalog as a first language and there are many Filipinos who can't speak Tagalog at all?I agree with The Mason. A Filipino who prefers to speak English in preference to his own language will be thought of as snobbish.However, I have been in situations in the past where Filipinos had to speak English to each other as it was their only common language. Or, even though they both spoke Tagalog as a second langauage, they could not understand each others Tagalog and chose to speak English instead to make themselves understood.Regards: Jim