Tagalog program

[annilita]

My husband lived in the Philippines for 2 years and when he was back in the States, he worked for an import company based there. His Tagalog is pretty good. We just got word that his boss wants to send us over in 6 months to open an office there. I know most people speak English very, very well over there, but we have had house guests from the

Comments

[hkitsune]

I personally would avoid the software-based learning aids. The best Tagalog book I've found so far is definitely "Learn Filipino" by Victor Romero. It's got CDs for pretty much everything, and the exercises are straight-forward *and* accurate.

[tisoi]

I just got a demo CD from Rosetta stone for European languages and Arabic and if the Tagalog version is anything like that, then I would avoid it. Not to bash Rosetta Stone, but I think Tagalog needs a different treatment.

With that said, if you want to have something more intensive, I would suggest "Beginning Tagalog" by J. Bowen. It comes with a bunch of tapes.

Beginning Tagalog was made in the late 1960s, so it's rather outdated. However, I think it's still good. The language may be bookish, but if your husband is good at Tagalog, he can learn to adapt.

Another good resource would be Conversational Tagalog: A Functional-Situational Approach by Dr. Teresita V. Ramos. It has been used in college classrooms since the 1980s. It doesn't have any audio though.

Being a Filipino American, I used a very old textbook from 1959 back when I was in 9th grade. It was by the late Paraluman Aspillera called Basic Tagalog for Foreigners And Non-tagalogs. There is a 2007 version now with CDs. It's worth looking into

[khall]

       There's a program called Before You Know It, that has taught me some Tagalog vocabulary. I am not sure how good it would be for actually teaching you speaking, but it was very effective in helping me to remember the (limited) number of words the free version gives you.

K.

[ext_1686380]

When I was learning Pilipino on my own, I used Paraluman Aspillera's Basic Tagalog: For Foreigners and Non-Tagalogs. It is now in its second edition published by Tuttle. I've found it to be quite helpful for my needs, especially the latest edition with its CD. Be warned, however, that there are some things in Aspillera that are a little lacking. For example, nowhere could I find proper ways of using gusto as a pseudo-verb (gusto ko ng mga libro versus gusto ko ang mga libro). Also many of the sentences tend to be formed with the connector "ay," which is used in more formal settings rather than the more colloquial verb + actor/object structure. Now that I've taken Pilipino in a formal setting, which really forced me to learn it, I now use Aspillera frequently as a reference grammar for those parts that my brain can't seem to hold. This is despite some of its few flaws.