Best Posts in Thread: Dumaguete - the place to retire

They certainly do understand Tagalog in Dumaguete and the surrounding areas. All those drama-drama shows my girlfriend watches on TV are in Tagalog, Cinema 1 is in Tagalog, all those stupid game shows are in Tagalog. I know my girlfriend and all of her family and friends are very capable of speaking Tagalog (perhaps they have an accent when they speak it but they do speak it and they are understood when they do). When my girlfriend and myself have went to other islands around the country I can tell when she starts speaking in Bisaya then catches herself and starts over in Tagalog. I would find it hard to believe that communication would be much of a problem for your girlfriend. The chances she will not find someone who either speaks Tagalog or English is pretty slim. Bisaya and Tagalog share many of the same words and the sentence structure seems to be pretty much the same. She will just need to pick up the Bisaya vocabulary and slang (much less a challenge than us native English speakers face). I would think it shouldn't take her any longer than 6 months to learn the language.......I'm sure it will come much faster to her than Thai did (if it ever did).

Sounds like you should be looking for a place in Bacong or Dauin. Bacong being closer to Dumaguete, Dauin being about 15 minutes further but has better beaches (and likely cheaper rent). In Bacong you can expect to find comfortable place for around 12-20k a month near the beach. I would expect to pay 10-18k in Dauin for the same level of comfort. The further away you get from Dumaguete the cheaper the rent should be. I live up in Valencia (up the mountain) myself and it's been awhile since I've looked for a place but this is what I would expect the prices to be. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm off on the prices.