Is being fluent in the Filipino language still significant in this day and age?

Michelle Jones

Professional Matchmaking Consultant for CebuWomen.com

International Dating Coach and Matchmaking Consultant for Cebu Women

 with years of professional experience in the industry.

The real question is who is it significant for?

1. To be globally competent, being fluent in English is more important.

2. For visitors/tourists to the Philippines, being fluent isn’t a requirement.

So here are instances where I feel fluency in Filipino is a requirement:

1. The classical arts. If you are interested in deeply understanding, studying, and performing Filipino classical arts (singing, literature, etc.), you will need some degree of fluency.

2. If you like to travel around the Philippines. If you’re from Cebu, and you want to travel to Tacloban where they speak Waray, you’re better off speaking in Filipino (Tagalog). If you’re clearly a native Filipino and you speak English to your fellow Filipino in an informal setting, that’s a no-no.

3. When it’s your job. If you’re a Filipino historian, public speaker, or politician, your Filipino has to be tip-top.

Is the Filipino language Tagalog close to the Spanish language?

Dayang C Marikit

I’m a Philippine history professor. I would like to inform people that “nothing is set in stone” because we are constantly gathering information and learning about our history, somethings may change in the future, but for now the things that I publish are the things that we currently perceive to “know about.”

No, Filipino language is a part of the Austronesian language family, specifically the Western Malayo-Polynesian branch. We may have adopted some Spanish loanwords but our languages are related to other Maritime Southeast Asian languages, such as Malay and Javanese.

On a side note, even Malay and Javanese had also adopted Portuguese, Dutch, English, Arabic and Sanskrit loanwords. While Spanish had also adopted many Arabic loanwords as well.

• It's normal for languages to adopt loanwords. In the Philippines we actually have multiple words for the same thing. We may have a "Spanish based loanword" and a "Local translation" as well. Ex: (Mesa/Hapag = Table), (Kwarto/Silid = Room), (Libro/Aklat = Book), (Bandila/Watawat = Flag), etc.

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Would Spanish speakers understand these?

How does the Filipino language sound to foreigners?

 

By: Lea Velasco

I made a German friend listen to some Filipino music just recently, and what he said was actually very interesting as it’s the first time I’ve ever heard a non-Filipino tell me how the Filipino language sounds like to them.

He said “It’s like a mix of Bahasa and Español.”

I can quite understand this interpretation, and it’s so perfectly well put.

It’s basically breaking down the ingredients that made the Filipino language what it is now; South East Asian (More probably Malayan) + Spanish influences.