7,000 Jobs in Dumaguete??!!

Sad thing about these younger people in the US is that they are not poor and are "well educated". Some with the same english teacher I had when I was in school. Apparently she has lost her touch as she was a spelling and grammar Nazi when I was in her class.

As for learning the local dialect: many of the girls I have been with have absolutely no interest in teaching me the language and only laugh when I try to say what few words I know in their language. My xwife would actually change dialects when I started to understand what her and her friends were talking about. Not to mention that many can't even begin to translate what they say into english. Ask what a certain word means and they give you a deer in the headlights look. I would love to learn the language, however, I can't find anyone willing or able to teach it. I'm stuck to phrase books and bisaya dictionaries, which rarely contain all the slang/conversational bisaya.....and not to mention are likely written by the same idiots who write the english texts in the schools here.

Rosetta Stone had a decent Tagalog program, which I used and started to learn with. However, the filipino I was around only laughed and belittled me when I attempted to practice with them. (of course if I do that to their english they are highly offended) Rosetta stone currently has no Bisaya classes. And don't come quoting that there are foreigners who speak the dialect, some people have an incredible ability to learn other languages. I'm not one of them and most others aren't as well. Its not the norm.

 

Agreed. It also helped when you are completely surrounded by a language and have no other option but to learn. That's simply not the case here. Most will try to surround themselves with people of similar culture and language. When I worked with the Italian military I learned the language at a much faster pace than I did than with other languages since so few spoke any english at all, I was also one of 5 Americans on the base. When not speaking a language effects your ability to find food or find shelter you learn much faster.

Of course with Italians you really only need to learn the words dopo/domani/dopo domani (later/tomorrow/the day after tomorrow) because that's when everything is going to get done.