Which language to learn

I was thinking I may wish to start brushing up on my tagalog to make the transition to retirement easier, the question I have though is should I work on that or try to learn Cebuano if I do manage to convince my wife that Dumaguete is the right place to retire?

 

If you are retiring in the Visayas region Tagalog will do you as much good as French. If you are coming to Dumaguete, Cebuano will be a big help but the locals have a number of local specific words that are different than in Cebu (Cebuano). Learn Cebuano and you will be instantly elevated in the grand scheme of things as they relate to opinions of foreigners.

Scott

 

Visayan/Cebuano is widely spoken in Dumaguete, while Ilonggo is spoken further north on Negros. Tagolog won't help you much unless you decide to live on Luzon. While all the dialects of the Philippines are somewhat similar, many of the words of each do not interchange or are pronounced and spelled differently enough to make communication between each dialect difficult, but not impossible.

 

Tagalog is the national language and it's taught on all the schools nationwide. As opposed to dialects which are learned at home.

Filipinos come here from Luzon all the time and don't have trouble communication in Tagalog with people in Dgte

 

Quote Originally Posted by Knowdafish View Post
Visayan/Cebuano is widely spoken in Dumaguete, while Ilonggo is spoken further north on Negros. Tagolog won't help you much unless you decide to live on Luzon. While all the dialects of the Philippines are somewhat similar, many of the words of each do not interchange or are pronounced and spelled differently enough to make communication between each dialect difficult, but not impossible.

Thanks KDF

Gabrielle_K
Tagalog is the national language and it's taught on all the schools nationwide. As opposed to dialects which are learned at home.

Filipinos come here from Luzon all the time and don't have trouble communication in Tagalog with people in Dgte


The OP wanted to know what language to learn if he were moving to Dumaguete. The language spoken here is Cebuano/Visayan. I can't speak for anyone else, my general point is speak the local language. Sure, some, and I do mean some, may understand a little Tagalog but why not learn the language of the area you intend to live in? Just because some one might understand a little Tagalog is not reason to abandon learning what is actually spoken in the area and it happens to be a very big area. I have been though the
"I am not having trouble communicating" thing with English. What really is happening is the person is very agreeable but has little or no idea what I am saying. fwiw

 

Yes!

Larry

 

Related Topic: What language should your children (here) learn if you are married to a foreigner?
I wish my boy to learn my language (English), Cebuano, and Tagalog. Assuming a foreigner's child may be fortunate to get a good education and hopefully a college degree, there will probably be few (if any) good paying local jobs so the child may have to go to Manila or international for employment. Perhaps there are other foreigners who might wish to add German or Norwegian or whatever to their child's learning, and in college the child may want to add Chinese or Japanese as well or maybe Russian if they make a comeback. I hope the learning of three or more languages is not too confusing to a young child's education. I guess that will depend on the parents and the teachers.
This is interesting for me and many of you as we didn't face the multiple language when our other children were growing up in our home countries (except Spanish in California).

 

Children who grow up with multiple languages seem to usually have the capability to pick up additional new languages much easier than those raised in a single language environment. It is an advantage for them to learn as many languages as practical in their formative years.

Larry

 

FWIW, English is the official language of the Philippines.

 

Many people refuse to speak Tagolog, I had a friend that learnt Tagolog and the locals said sir, why are you speaking Tagolog? we are ilongas here, so he said f- you all and gave up, he only speaks English and if the locals cant understand he goes to another vendor that can speak English.