Do any members of this forum have tagalog speaking wives or gf's living here in Negros Oriental? Maybe she moved here with you or she was working here (as in my case) and you met her here. I'm wondering how long she has lived here and if she has learnt Bisaya well enough to talk conversationaly with locals? Or has she found tagalog talking friends? My observance over 10 years living here at social circles or get togethers for meals out with your wife....the invitees are decided by the host's wife and maybe expats with tagalog speaking wives will find they are not invited because the bisaya wives naturally prefer talking in their local language. I would add my lady has been here here one year and has learnt a lot of bisaya and can understand the locals talking but not good enough yet to talk it conversationaly.
I feel bad for your wife. I should invite her out. She and I can form our own club of “wives who don’t get invited out.”
Ive been here for 13 years and my wife is Tagalog, its not that they dont speak Bisaya, because the locals speak Tagalog, there is just a dislike for anyone that speaks Tagalog.
This is what I found with filipinas in Australia Sam when I took my first filipina wife there to live. There were more tagalogs there than bisaya/cebuanos. My wife then was from Cebu and the bisaya speaking girls prefered to only meet with bisaya girls... and I guess it was the same with the tagalog girls. The interesting question is if a tagalog girl lives here in duma and learns to speak fluent bisaya is she then accepted by the local girls?
There seems to be a rivalry between the two, like school spirit, they both think the other group is both snobby and inferior. I don't get it, my wife is from Manila and she says she doesn't want to move to Visaya because of this. She says she will always be a Manilaeno there but honestly, she seems to be the one with the attitude.
I reckon she would be. They, likely, just don’t want to be bothered translating things for people reason why they don’t want to hang out with people who can’t understand them. Too much effort and then they start using words like “nosebleed”. It’s like when you want to chill out, you just want to hang out with friends and not having to worry about straining your brain communicating things. The moment she gets the hang of Bisaya, I reckon she will be fine. And no, I unfortunately do not speak Tagalog. But I’ve been told my sign language skills are exemplary.
Mike, Azon speaks both and will always have conversations with cel, There are many among my Friends who have a Wife /GF that speaks both, maybe you need to get her out among them at some time, I really don't thing we have many ( if any at all would snub Cel) @OzMike
Thanks Peter that would be great. Cel has now changed her working days to Weds, Thurs, Sat (she use to always work a Sunday) which gives us a nice 3 day block of Sunday, Monday andTuesday for socialising. Being English and from the more mature generation (ahem) we don't like to just drop in on folk so tend to wait to be invited. Think we also need to make more effort to get out and visit friends...guess I need to just ask if we can call in to say hello... bit like trying to get a girl to dance when I was a lad... if you don't ask you won't get!
