The national language in the Philippines is called Tagalog. It is related to Austronesian languages such as Javanese, Indonesian and Malay.
The great thing about traveling to the Philippines is that you don't really need to learn how to speak Tagalog since most Filipinos (that's how the citizens are called, not Phillies or Philippinians) are able to converse in English. However, there are a couple of Tagalog words you might want to know.
Polite Forms of Address
Po or Ho
Younger people and junior employees typically use these terms at the start of there greetings. It is used to appropriate respect to the person being spoken.
For example, if you were talking to a colleague, you can just say a short response like "yes" but if you were talking to an older person you'd have to say "o-po" or "o-ho" which are the polite versions of yes.
Greetings
Greetings in the Philippines usually start with the word "maganda" or beautiful. Here are a couple of examples you can use:
- Magandang araw po = Good day sir/ma'am (polite version, note the use of the word "po"
- Magandang umaga po = Good morning sir/ma'aam
- Magandang tanghali po = Good afternoon sir/ma'am
- Magandang hapon po = Good afternoon sir/ma'aam
- Magandang gabi po = Good evening sir/ma'aam
If you were talking to an equal, you can drop the term "po" and say:
- Magandang araw = Good morning
- Magandang hapon = Good afternoon.
To respond to greetings, you only have to add words like rin and naman. For example,
- Magandang umaga rin sa iyo. = Good morning to you, too.
- Magandang umaga naman. = Good morning, too.
- Magandang tanghali rin po. = Good afternoon, too, sir/ma'am.
Vocabulary list
That's about it for now. To review, here are the terms we have used in this article
- tanghali = noon or midday (In the Philippines, this covers the period between 11 am to 1 pm. This is also the time when families prepare for their lunch.}
- maganda = beautiful {or good, when used as a part of a greeting)
- gabi = night {or evening, when used as a part of a greeting)
- hapon = afternoon
- araw = day (or morning when used as a part of a greeting)
- umaga = morning
- oho or opo = used to say yes formally
Here are other terms we will discuss in the future:
- Kumusta? = How are you?
- Paalam = Goodbye
- Mabuti = Fine
This Tagalog tutorial came from the book Basic Tagalog for Foreigners and Non-Tagalogs by Paraluman S. Aspillera. Published in 2007 by Tuttle Publishing.
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