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Learning the Language | Dumaguete Info

Taken from the Latin word ex(out of) and patria(country, fatherland), an expatriate or expat in short is a person who resides or visits temporarily or permanently in another country. An expat in the Philippines may refer to a Westener, say an American or British in the country or a non-Westener, say a Japanese or a Chinese living in the Philippines who are distinguishable by their way of living.

In wherever country they may be expats always encounter many difficulties. Among these are difficulties in adopting a new culture and language. In the Philippines, learning the language is one of the many things an expat finds difficult. Learning Tagalog language specifically is a challenge to almost all expats.

With regards to learning the language, there are three types of expats learning the language. The first one being those who are aggressive towards learning. They are those people who do not care about income at first. They make learning their priority and will do whatever to learn the language very quickly. They learn the language in their own pace rather than being under supervision which they find boring. They in general has 100% success rate regardless of their level of intelligence. This may be due to the fact that they talk with mostly or only on their target language.

The second one are those who are smart and uncertain who think about their economics or money budget for the language they want to learn. Their focus is constrained and sometimes they have to stop and go on their language attempts. In four years being in the country you might find this people quite good in the language already. The percentage of success for this group is 50%.

The third type are those who lack self confidence. They might be the smartest of all but since they lack self confidence they have difficulty in learning the language. They have think that they don’t have the gift of language and thus their lack of self confidence make their learning slow. This group has a 100% failure rate because they don’t have the right attitude.

For expats in the Philippines their challenge is to learn Tagalog. Tagalog being the language spoken by most Filipinos and the root of the Filipino Language the national language of the Philippines.

Just like all other languages, learning Tagalog in the Philippines may be hard. But with dedication and right attitude towards learning the language little by little an expat will find himself able to speak the language. Having enough money budget for the language helps a lot. Having money, dedication and right attitude towards a language helps ensure learning to the maximum.