Product Description
You can use Teach Yourself Tagalog Complete Course to learn at your own pace or as a supplement to your classwork. This complete course utilizes the very latest learning methods in an enjoyable and user-friendly format.

The new edition also features:

• Engaging visual materials such as menus, photographs, signs, and tickets
• Two CD recordings allowing quick and easy access to individual lessons and exercises
• A clear, accessible new page design
• Strong, striking cover photography

Customer Reviews (7)

It is just "average"
I am married to a Filipina, and at 60 years old, wanted to learn more of the native language of the Philippines.

This book is usefull, but not enough on its own.I got a good dictionary to help, and that did help.

This book often teaches in phrases, so trying to figure out the actual root word can be confusing.For example "mura ang halaga" is correctly translated as "the price is inexpensive" but the beginner would not know which word is which. Literally it is "cheap the price."Anyhow have a dictionary nearby, that will help.I am always looking up the root words, trying to find the prefix, etc.

Another problem, when I got to the Philippines, is that everyone who went to school learned English anyhow, and I knew even if I asked in Tagalog "Where is the bathroom," the answer would be in English.

And, there are so MANY dialects, so this book won't work everywhere.When we arrived on a visit my wife (my wife speaks Tagalog, 4 other dialects, and English) talked to one of the maids, and then told me that I would not understand what they are saying because it is a dialect.Then one of my wife's sons (a Pilipino) said, "Mommy, I don't know what you are saying, either!"And then he told me that he understood how difficult it is, because when he goes to "the province" (Cebu) with his wife, he has "no idea what anyone is saying."

The dialogues in the book, although helpful, are very short.While in the Philippines we went to the National Book Store at an SM Mall, and I looked for children's books. (98% of the books were in English, BTW.) I got Ang Bagong Kaibigan Ni Bing Butiki and Si Pedrong Pato at ang Matalinong Kuwago.Having the book I'm reviewing did help a bit, but the above children's stories were terrific as "vocabulary builders."

not what it appears
Yep, I gotta agree.It's not what it appears to be.Shipped without the CD's, and their customer service says the CD's are not included.That should be made crystal clear in their product description, since this title normally includes CD's.I recommend buying from someone else that will include the CD's.After all, the spoken verbal audio is critical when learning a language.

Not for the Nervous?
The title of this book is too short to be true to its contents and approach. It should be called "Teach yourself Tagalog, with a lot of help from your Filipino friends and a bottle of tranquilizers".

To be fair, a lot of hard and productive thinking has plainly gone into the design of this course. The underlying learning objectives for each of the twenty units are sensibly chosen, and the progression from unit to unit is intelligently planned and well paced. The dialogues generally are excellent examples of how to make introductory material understandable to beginners while not compromising too much on truthfulness to the living language, and there is a good mixture of strictly language-focussed learning with bite-sized but nevertheless generally informative cultural snippets.

One pervasive problem, though, is that syllable stresses are never marked in the printed texts. This is a serious drawback for the solo learner. Although real-life Tagalog texts, apart from examples in dictionaries and grammars, do not mark stresses (or final glottal stops), such markings are essential in primers meant for self-instruction, because Tagalog has many forms whose meaning is drastically changed by different stresses or the presence or absence of a final glottal stop. Unless these things are plainly indicated on the printed page, the learner is all too liable get into the habit of pronouncing such words wrongly, with maybe unfortunate results.

The accompanying CDs are not likely to be of much help. It's surprising how many publishers of language teaching materials (the BBC being a notable exception) don't realise that speaking such dialogues convincingly requires professional voice-acting skills, which are sadly lacking to the speakers used here. They are obviously natives, but that's not enough.

An even more serious problem with this volume, however, is its disconcertingly neurotic and unfocussed approach to grammatical explanation. A good language teacher knows how to build the learner's confidence by revealing and explaining the more difficult aspects of the target language in a controlled and progressive way. But this is not the same as making repeated pre-emptive strikes against anticipated panic attacks, especially if the alleged grounds for panic often seem slender anyway. This little volume is dominated by the assumption that the would-be learner of Tagalog is of a highly nervous disposition and is likely to flee in terror and never come back if such shocking terms as "verb" or "consonant" are mentioned without the accompaniment of soothing noises and profuse apologies for touching on unpleasant topics.

Now it's rather hard to write any effective language course, let alone one for a language as distant from European structures as Tagalog, while shielding the reader entirely from grammatical considerations (and therefore also grammatical terms of one sort or another); but at points when that necessity can't be avoided, the reader of this book is invariably reassured that there is "no need to panic" or be "bewildered", or they are urged to "try not to worry about" the point of grammar in question. The use of "try" here subliminally suggests that there are indeed grounds for anxiety, even though this particular phrase is used, for example, to soften the apparently crushing news that the plural form of a certain pronoun differs from the singular. But the reassurances are seldom followed by satisfactory explanations of the supposedly "frightening" items; instead, the recommended course is frequently to "ask your Filipino friends".Which for some learners a long way from the Philippines or from, say, a major healthcare centre, might well be something of a problem

In general, the grammatical explanations tend to make much ado about "explaining" things that will be perfectly plain to most people interested in learning a language anyway, or else they treat side issues at some length, while overlooking things the learner is more likely to find troublesome. For instance, in the first lesson, after a table of the main personal pronouns, we read the following "explanation":

Notice that "you" (singular) has two forms: ka and ikaw. The simple difference is that ka is always used as part of a sentence ... whereas ikaw can stand alone (without being used in a sentence).

Now that's true, but it's hardly what a learner most needs to know. Since, as this explanation correctly implies, both 'ikaw' and 'ka' can indeed "be used in a sentence", what the learner really wants to be told is which one of them to use in a given sentence(they are never interchangeable, and in some circumstances neither is used). On this matter, the authors are silent.

In lesson 2 we are introduced to the words "sino?" and "ano?". "Sino?", we are correctly told, means "who?" andis used to ask about persons, whereas "ano?" means "what?" and is used to ask about things. Since this is one of the rare occasions where there is a close match between English and Tagalog, that much should be plain sailing. But our ever-anxious guides feel it's necessary to remark "don't worry if this sounds daunting," which is more likely to give readers a disturbing sense that they must have somehow skipped a daunting bit without noticing it.

Yet in the very next lesson the authors broach a genuinely difficult point with no such show of concern, via a casual aside.After outlining the distinction between two Tagalog words for different types of negation, 'hindi' and 'wala', they continue, as though they were adding something perfectly obvious:"unlike 'hindi', 'wala' is followed by a ligatured pronoun". Now this really should be something to be worried about, because you will search in vain in earlier pages for anymention of a "ligatured pronoun", and such items are not likely to be in any learner's grammatical carry-on luggage. Our unfortunate learner issuddenly deprived ofthe assurances doled out so extensively and unnecessarily elsewhere, and left to work out the meaning from a couple of uncommented examples, before being puzzled still further by being told that "when followed by a noun, 'wala' takes a ligature". These two statements are more or less correct, though not particularly well expressed. But they presuppose that readers know what a ligature is in Tagalog (and other Philippine languages) and what "taking" one involves, and yet they are offered no explanation of the matter and are denied even the usual claim that they "need not worry", or can turn to those long-suffering "Filipino friends" for enlightenment.

The book's most serious shortcomings in grammatical explanation, however, concern what many believe to be the key to mastery of Tagalog: the verb system with its multiple voices (or, in an alternative terminology, "focus"). The authors' approach here is to pick on things that can be made to look, at a pinch, a little like the verb system of European languages and keep quiet about the rest. Many of the issues they leave untouched are, inevitably, exemplified in the dialogues, but they are left either completely unmentioned, or kept gingerly at bay via yet more referrals to those helpful friends.

Overall, for people who are lucky enough to have native-speakerfriends or family, and want to have a go at understanding what they say in Tagalog and take a stab at talking back, without any particular ambition to get beyond basic oral communication, this volume is good enough. It could also provide a serviceable text book for, say, an adult evening class taken by a teacher who could substitute his or her own grammatical explanations for those in the text while drawing on the strengths of the general structure and dialogues. But for solo learners who do not have ready access to a patient native speaker or who want to go beyond everyday gist comprehension and formulaic utterances, this book might just do more harm than good, because it merely toys with the real areas of difficulty and manages to obfuscate rather than clarify them in the mind of any reader with an ambition to get beyond the basics.

There is, of course, nothing wrong with elementary language courses. But, like elementary schools, what they teach and how they teach it shouldn't hamper the progress of those who want to go on to more demanding levels. Sadly, anyone who got to the end of this course then wanted take their knowledge of this fascinating language still further might well find they needed to forget most of the grammatical explanations offered them here and start all over again. The Teach Yourself series contains a splendid counter-example of how to get beginners confidently started on a difficult language and at the same time equip them for much more advanced studies if they so choose, in the form of Teach Yourself Korean, by Mark Vincent and Yeon Jaehoon. But that's another language, and maybe, one day, another review.

Good Start
This is a really great book and it has a good basis for what a new learner of the language would need, especially someone who is planning on traveling to the Philippines. The only thing that I have a hard time with is how fast they speak on the CDs, but that does make it more like it would be like in a real life situation.

Good Introductory Book
Quite a good book to get you started learning your new language!The CDs are very helpful and really give you the edge to learning pronunciation.The only drawback to this book is that it is hard to know the pronunciation for the words not spoken on the CDs.

However, the explanations on the uses of the words and topics are quite helpful and easy to understand.Also there are some good explanations of Tagalog expressions, as well as some explanations of the Pilipino culture.

If you want lots of exercises you might want to get another book in adition to this one.However, they CDs make this book a very good tool in learning the language.

I recommend buying the Hippocrene Standard Dictionary Tagalog-English/English-Tagalog by Carl R. Galves Rubino ... Read more

Product Description

When you're taking in the sights and smells of a local festival, hopping across the thousands of islands, telling the faith healer where it hurts, navigating your way around in a wildly-coloured jeepney or simply ordering a meal in one of Manila's finer restaurants - you'll get it right with the help of this new and comprehensive phrasebook.

• Find the words to speak Pilipino as the Filipinos do:
• speak with complete confidence with our accurate pronunciation guide
• find your way by bus, train, bike, car, jeepney or foot
• enjoy the local cuisine and get to know the local culture and customs
• includes extensive two-way dictionary
• special sections for business, families, gays, disabled travellers, film crews, teams on tour

Customer Reviews (3)

Great Little Carrying Guide
This is one of the two best books on Tagalog I have in my collection. Though TAGALOG-ENGLISH DICTIONARY by Carl R. Galvez Rubini is by far the best and most comprehensiveTagalog-English dictionary I have ever seen to date, this little pocket sized phrasebook is great for carrying on you while traveling. Ofcourse due to size don't expect it to be as complete as a full size dictionary, but you will be very satisfied for all the content it has and still fits in your shirt or back pocket. It starts off with Tagalog basic grammar and how to pronounce the vowels in a very easy to understand manner, which is extremely helpful to say the words correctly. It has a nice 2-way dictionary, a lot of common phrases, Filipino food dishes, Holiday dates, crossword puzzles and much more general info which is handy while traveling to the Philippines. There's also an assortment of fast fact boxes through out the pages which I found very interesting. I was very impressed with so much information in such a small book, not to mention the cheap price. I have been traveling to the Philippines for 6 years now and I still carry this neat little book with me. All in all, I think this is a great little phrasebook and worth every penny.

Excellent Travel Reference
If you are a non-Tagalog traveling to the Philippines, this book is a must.A concise dictionary, lots of useful phrases organized by topic, a pronunciation guide, even an introduction to Filipino grammar!Small sizemakes it easy to carry.

lonely planet pilipino (tagalong) phrasebook
This is a useful pocket sized book that has mostly common (and some not so common) words you might need while travelling.It is divided into themes and even at the end there are some crosswords to "use what youlearned".It also uses accent marks to help pronounce the wordscorrectly.It is a "neat" little book! ... Read more

Product Description
This simple and effective introduction to Tagalog will teach you everything you need to speak, understand, read, and write in Tagalog.This program assumes no background in the language, and it explains each new concept clearly with plenty of examples, making it ideal for beginners or anyone who wants a thorough review.Living Language Tagalog includes:

·A course book and six audio CDs
·Two unique sets of recordings, one for use with the book, and a second for use anywhere to review and reinforce
·Natural dialogues, clear grammar notes, vocabulary building, and key expressions
·Plenty of practice, both written and recorded
·Notes on culture, cuisine, history, geography, and more
·Real life “discovery” activities and internet resources
·An extensive two-way glossary ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Wish it were better
Occasionally examples are used making use of grammatical constructions you haven't learned yet.You'll have to hunt around the find the explanations.

As annoying as that inconvenience is, the lack of accent marks is a real bummer.Yes, the intent of the course is to get the learner to hear and speak and not just read, but this isn't Pimsleur, the conversations (which are quite good, by the way) are detailed, and reviewing them without having the discs handy is, to my mind, a serious detriment.

far and away the best option for beginners
This is the best source for learning Tagalog that I have found. The structure of the language is difficult and counter-intuitive for English speaking learners, but this book manages to be grammatically thorough without becoming abstruse. The dialogues are interesting and the CDs are excellent quality.Books that teach more advanced Tagalog (Wolff's, for example) will be a quantum leap in difficulty, but a foundation course like this one is a confidence builder for going on to more difficult material. ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (23)

This Book, But Not This Edition
This is a good book, but the 2nd edition is really good. Get the one with the CD, published in 2007. The 2nd edition provides in-depth explanations of language features such as the verb forms and ligatures. Topics are presented in chunks small enough to comprehend and master.
This edition has a good thing in its charts, for example, all of the personal pronouns grouped in one chart. We are actually using both editions.

Needs other resources to be useful
This book would be very difficult if you do not know someone who already speaks tagalog or have another book handy for translations.

From the Few Comes Adequacy
There aren't many sources from which you can learn Tagalog, which is strange, since it's the second most widely spoken Asian language here in the US. In fact, the study of Japanese is the big fad right now although it doesn't even make the top ten list of most widely spoken languages (besides English) in the US, according to the 2000 census. Anyway, I'm currently in high school and studying ang wikang Tagalog recreationally, and I was fascinated when I polled my friends and familiy about languages spoken in the US...asked whether or not they were aware of the Vietnamese, Mandarin (Chinese), Korean, and occasionally even the Hmong languages, most responded affirmatively.

However, when I questioned my friends and family members about their awareness of Tagalog language...only 1 of friends knew this language even existed (he's half Filipino). In fact, most of my friends and family didn't know where the Philippines even are, and a few didn't even know there was such a country.

Not to mention the intimidation factor of the Tagalog language; yes, Chinese and Japanese have radically different scripts and grammar than English, but there are tremendous resources for both! Japanese has anime and manga as an enticing resource, and Mandarin Chinese has that whole top language in the world thing (1.3 billion speakers), but Tagalog is entirely scary when potential learners see sweet, innocent little words, like tiwala, meaning 'trust', heinously mutilated by prefixes, infixes, and suffixes to become: pinakapinagkakatiwalaan; which means, I think, 'the most trusted'. Who, among the Americans of my generation, so accustomed to instant gratification, would really care to learn the grammar of a language that would even attempt something like that, unless to get in touch with their roots?

Not to mention the reassurance of "oh, the Philippines had been under Spanish rule for hundreds of years, and the Tagalog language has been tremendously influenced by teh spansh language!3@!!#432!!" Well, not really. There are actually several languages in the Philippines that are much more Spanish-influenced, but grammar-wise, Tagalog just didn't conform besides adopting stuff like numbers (veintedos as opposed to dalawampu't dalawa), some nouns, and words like mas (more) or o (or). Yes, learning Spanish would help...with about 400 words. Good luck from there.

This book is a decent resource out of the very few affordable resources for Tagalog out there. It's updated, and contains reading material to practice on (or just freak yourself out with), and I hate to break it to you...but it's only a book. Basic Tagalog will not teach you words at an amazing rate, learn "like a child would", "pass as a native", or any other commonly guaranteed results if you don't do the excercises, and if you don't make an effort to make flashcards, or if you put no extra effort in learning whatsoever. Unfortunately, learning from a book-any book on language-will feel like work at one time or another, even if you're simply learning out of interest like I am. This is not the book's fault; it utilizes, most of the time, the drill-and-rote method of learning, which means if you only "go by the book" and not take the effort to say, watch any Tagalog-language movies or speak to Tagalog-speaking people, it might take years to master.

In short, I was very surprised by the good quality of the book. I agree with other reviewers that it should contain answers, and it is INCREDIBLY annoying that there are typos within the book itself (!), but we're getting reading material from essayists and poets as opposed to trite little tourist phrases, and perhaps the lack of an answer key was to influence the reader to become more of an active learner...to study the writing provided, to study it's structure and affirm for oneself whether one is correct or not, or even influence the reader to (in the age of the internet) ask a fluent speaker, who would be incredibly happy to know someone else is attempting to master a language they love.

Perhaps I'm overthinking it ;)

Either way, Basic Tagalog is inexspensive enough where you can purchase it, take what you need from it, and leave it if you so prefer...or become interested in adopting a ruggedly lyrical, resilient language and connecting with the equally resilient people who've bothered learning it.

rigorous but thorough
This is an thorough book on how to speak Tagalog, like all serious textbooks it requires some effort, although it is technical at times.

Honestly, I don't understand some of the criticism of this book, this is one of the more effective language books I have used. Tagalog is much more complex than most people seem to think, maybe this is what surprises them. It is certainly not a simple language to learn, grammatically it is up there with German and French.

A typical chapter looks like this:
1. introduction of the chapter topic (pronouns, possession, questions etc)
2. vocabulary list
3. examples (many of them)
4. excercises (putting the right word in sentences, making correct conjugations etc.)
5. translation exercise
6. more grammar and examples
7. a final set of excercises (making your own sentences etc.)

What stands out in this book are the many examples, and that the excercises are usually spread out in the chapter.
The grammar is explained quite clearly, although it does gets too technical at times for my liking.
The excercises are numerous and will train you in all aspects of grammar.

I don't give this book 5/5 because I think the technical approach of this book slows you down and makes in unnecessarily difficult.

If you want to learn casually this is the wrong book for you, but if you want something extensive that will take you beyond the basics and you don't mind making abit of effort, this book will prove worthwhile.

Much help!!
FAR better than rosetta (ugh) stone and MUCH better for pronunciation of words. And far better than the $200 plus dollars for the FIRST rosetta (ugh) stone course (of three courses costing around $500 plus for all 3 courses). I sent rosetta (ugh) stone's first course back after 3 weeks. Your choice of course. ... Read more

Product Description
Now expanded and completely updated, this best-selling two-way dictionary is designed for students of the Tagalog language and native Tagalog speakers in need of a bilingual dictionary. It includes a grammatical introduction to the language, a vocabulary appendix with numbers and menu terms. And over 20,000 total dictionary entries, with idiomatic expressions, slang, loan words and derivations. Tagalog, also known as Pilipino, is the national language of the Philippines and has over 17 million speakers world-wide. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (24)

RosettaStone Tagalog
We received the tagalog series from Rosetta Stone because our daughter-in-law is Filipino and tagalog is her native language. Since she is learning English before she gets here in the United States we thought it would be a nice suprise if we would learn her language. Since receiving the series from amazon we have been pleasantly surprised on how well the program works. It will take about 7 months for her to get here to the states so will have plenty of time to get the language down. Thanks!

great resource
I recently adopted an older child from the Philippines and having this book made it easier for him to understand English.Good comprehensive dictionary.

Very complete
This book was quite useful and is very thorough. Not only does it have the translation, but it also talks about the culture. I would recommend this book to anyone who needs an extra resource to learn Tagalog.

A Help But Not a Solution
This is a pretty good dictionary most of the time. I am trying to learn conversational Tagalog and generally find more than half the words I look up. For complete novices like me, a book teaching the language is also requisite. Language oddities like prefixes, suffixes, and in-the-middle-of-the-word fixes make simple word lookup something of a treasure hunt without knowledge of basic language structure. For conversation, I would also recommend supplementing this dictionary with a book that is heavy on slang and colloquial usage. A plus for the dictionary is the organized list of related words, such as food types, professions, body parts, etc.

Wayne thomas
While this dictionary was useful i was advised by loacal Manila residents that many of the tag words are out moded or not in use. ... Read more

Product Description
Conversational Tagalog includes the first 16 lessons from the Pimsleur Comprehensive Tagalog Level I program. This Conversational program contains 8 hours of interactive audio-only instruction, effective language learning with real-life spoken practice sessions.

The Pimsleur Method provides the most effective language-learning program ever developed. The Pimsleur Method gives you quick command of Tagalog structure without tedious drills. Learning to speak Tagalog can actually be enjoyable and rewarding.

The key reason most people struggle with new languages is that they aren't given proper instruction, only bits and pieces of a language. Other language programs sell only these pieces -- dictionaries; grammar books and instructions; lists of hundreds or thousands words and definitions; audios containing useless drills. They leave it to you to assemble these pieces as you try to speak. Pimsleur enables you to spend your time learning to speak the language rather than just studying its parts.

When you were learning English, could you speak before you knew how to conjugate verbs? Of course you could. That learning process is what Pimsleur replicates. Pimsleur presents the whole language as one integrated piece so you can succeed.

With Pimsleur you get:

• Grammar and vocabulary taught together in everyday conversation,
• Interactive audio-only instruction that teaches spoken language organically,
• The flexibility to learn anytime, anywhere,
• 30-minute lessons designed to optimize the amount of language you can learn in one sitting.

Millions of people have used Pimsleur to gain real conversational skills in new languages quickly and easily, wherever and whenever -- without textbooks, written exercises, or drills.

Conversational Tagalog includes the 10 lessons from Pimsleur's Basic Tagalog plus an additional 6 lessons.

The 16 lessons in Conversational Tagalog are the same first 16 lessons in the Pimsleur Comprehensive Tagalog Level 1. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

very effective
I use these CD's on the drive to/from work, and they have proven most effective. I listen to each one about 2 or 3 times until I absorbed about 90% of the material. I think this is necessary because I'm partially focusing on the road.

The CD's stay true to the title. All lessons are really working through a conversation, and not just repetitive memorization. I've made some good progress, and my filipino wife is quite impressed with what I've learned.

I recommend this to anyone. I know my father tried Pimsleur's french lessons and had a equally good experience. the only negative is that you don't learn the spelling, but so what. I think their conversational technique is much more effective then a written lesson.

Perfect for tourists
I'm on lesson 14 of 16 of this and I'm pleased so far. If you're going to visit the Philippines and need just enough Tagalog to get around, this is perfect. It really focuses on the basics of asking where things are, telling time, shopping, etc. The lessons are structured well and make learning interesting. Tagalog is not an easy language to learn -- it has lots of sounds native English speakers will struggle to master -- and you'll probably need to listen to each CD a few times. Don't move on until you're confident or you'll be lost later on. My only (minor) complaint about the lessons is that the native speakers on the CDs sometimes pronounce the same words or phrases differently, or too quickly, and it takes a while to figure out how to pronounce them correctly. I recommend you get a Tagalog-English dictionary or look up words online, because seeing a word or phrase in print will help. Overall, a worthy product.

Tagalog cds
Yes Learn Tagalog Lesson 1 16 parts Then buy lesson 2 then buy lesson 3 then buy lesson 4 and so and so on they do not say that when you buy these Cds you have to buy more to learn more

Great program, hard language.
So I have purchased Pimsluer products in the past (JAPANESE) and I picked it up very fast.This program is great, it's just that Tagalog is not the easiest language to pick up even though it's closely related to Spanish.I am a native English speaker, but speak Spanish as well.Japanese wasn't too bad to learn, but Tagalog is very different in the sounds your mouth makes.Still I like the product, just saying the language itself is a bit more difficult.But I will buy Pimsluer again if I plan on learning another language.

Excellent product
Kumusta!! Anybody can learn with this product! Easy to use and understand! If you have never tried a language learning cd before then this is the one to go with. I have tried many other similar products on the market and this one beats the competitors easily. If you are planning a trip to another country or only want to broaden your knowledge, this is the product to invest in. It is worth every penny. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Bad Kindle Book
The pages are actually scanned images from a real book.The pages are not straight and display side ways.They are also very grainy and hard to make out.You are expected to read and pernounce words but can't even make out all of the letters.Finally, it appears that you are supposed to have audio tapes or something with this because the text directs to to listen to the word and repeat them exactly as you hear them.Without the audio component, you can't really do much.

Even at 99 cents, this is not a good product. ... Read more

Product Description
Learn to speak the colloquial language of the Philippines with the Essential Tagalog Phrase Book. This phrase book is an excellent guide to the modern Tagalog spoken in everyday interactions. The essential information needed by travelers—novices and old hands alike—is presented in a way that’s concise, accessible and easy to understand.
The Essential Tagalog Phrase Book is your indispensable pocket travel companion.

... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Excellent book
I just adopted an older child from the philippines and this book was a great way for me to have some phrases to speak to him in his language.I really enjoyed it.Unfortunately, as soon as he saw it he confiscated it to use with his friends!!!Now I'll have to order another one.

Awesome!
This phrase book is awesome! I'm trying to learn tagalog so I use it all the time. My mother was really surprised when I started using some of the phrases of the book! It's really great and I would recommend it to anyone trying to learn tagalog.

Not bad
The book is divided into section such as "emergency," "food," etc.Being someone who understands the language it's a nice refresher on how to speak when traveling.It does not have a pronouncination guide so someone who's still learning or has never spoken it may have trouble. It about the height/width of a paperback but thin. It can fit in a small purse, not so much in a "pocket." ... Read more

Product Description
This Basic program contains 5 hours of audio-only, effective language learning with real-life spoken practice sessions.

The Pimsleur Method provides the most effective language-learning program ever developed. The Pimsleur Method gives you quick command of Tagalog structure without tedious drills. Learning to speak Tagalog can actually be enjoyable and rewarding.

The key reason most people struggle with new languages is that they aren't given proper instruction, only bits and pieces of a language. Other language programs sell only pieces -- dictionaries; grammar books and instructions; lists of hundreds or thousands of words and definitions; audios containing useless drills. They leave it to you to assemble these pieces as you try to speak. Pimsleur enables you to spend your time learning to speak the language rather than just studying its parts.

When you were learning English, could you speak before you knew how to conjugate verbs? Of course you could. That same learning process is what Pimsleur replicates. Pimsleur presents the whole language as one integrated piece so you can succeed.

With Pimsleur you get:

• Grammar and vocabulary taught together in everyday conversation,
• Interactive audio-only instruction that teaches spoken language organically,
• The flexibility to learn anytime, anywhere,
• 30-minute lessons designed to optimize the amount of language you can learn in one sitting.

Millions of people have used Pimsleur to gain real conversational skills in new languages quickly and easily, wherever and whenever -- without textbooks, written exercises, or drills.

The 10 lessons in the Basic Tagalog are the same as the first 10 lessons in the Pimsleur Comprehensive Tagalog Level 1.

The 10 lessons in Basic Tagalog are also the first 10 lessons in the 16-lesson Conversational Tagalog edition.

Pimsleur learners progress from either the Basic or the Conversational to the Comprehensive Level 1, and not from Basic to Conversational edition. ... Read more

Product Description
Over ten million Filipinos speak Tagalog, a language more and more Westerners are studying -- with precious few learning materials.This dictionary changes the status quo, providing a reliable compendium of over 6,000 of the most common English words in Tagalog.Pronunciation guidelines created by the Institute of National Language allow the student to develop thorough familiarity with tricky stresses and glottal vowels.Inexpensive and expansive, the Concise English-Tagalog Dictionary will prove invaluable for teachers, students, travelers, and business people who are drawn into contact with this surging nation. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Not very helpful
I still don't know what the Tagalog word is for "wheelchair" - anybody?

Dated, but useful
This dictionary is specifically intended for beginning students, it contains a limited vocabulary(I guess about 7000-8000) English entries, each entry is given from 1 to 4-5 Tagalog equivalents,different meanings of English entry words are shown by synonyms, eg. english_entry - (english_synonym1) tagalog_meaning1, (english_synonym2) tagalog_meaning2, (english_synonym3) tagalog_meaning3 etc. Accent place and glottal stops - an important feature of Tagalog - is clearly shown. The list of affixes appears to be very useful.

In short introduction the author relates the troubled circumstances of the WWII in whgich this short dictionary was born.

Of course the dictionary is dated, however since it deals only with the very basics of the language which change but very little with the time, it can be quite useful for the contemporary student.

Disappointing in some respects, useful in others...
Mr. Panganiban is (was?) a respected Philippine linguist.So I am a bit disappointed that this dictionary is only one-way.But the content is useful.However some words have multiple meanings and it doesn't say howthey should be used.

However, I did like the section with the affixcharts and their meanings.. That was very useful.

I also feel that thedictionary should have been updated more. ... Read more

Product Description
Intended to supply the beginner with a well-selected stock of words, this book includes lessons on how to speak, understand, read and write Tagalog. The 20 units are graded in complexity and arranged thematically. Each contains a dialogue, vocabulary list, exercises and cultural tips. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

A Good Buy
I think this book was definitely helpful in helping me learn Tagalog, especially when there aren't many places to learn the language firsthand, such as a college or university.The tapes were also very helpful.The only complaint I have is that the book was made badly.The pages are only held together by a thin layer of glue.My pages fall out on a regular basis.Otherwise, an altogether good buy.

Easy to follow book
This was an excellent English - Tagalog book. I also bought a cassette to properly HEAR the words. However, I wish they would have an American college course in Tagalog, I am tired of learning to speak Spanish or French. My wish is that we could have a college course professor who would teach this language as an elective in school.

Very readable.
This book has a story which starts from their arrival at the airport. You will see dialogs of conversation. I am a local who is very familiar with Tagalog. I bought this for my European wife who wishes to learn. One thing we found is that the translations is around 98% correct. But the format is enough for one to learn the language. The approach is practical. We don't have the accompanying tape and I didn't know it had one as an option. So I would do the talking for my wife to get the proper pronunciation. I don't know how foreigners would read this book but I assume they are likely to get the wrong pronunciation without help. The phrases have no indication how you would pronouce them but I think it might be a distraction.

I found that the best way for a foreigner to learn is to be exposed to it by speaking it and being spoken to in Tagalog, or listening to an actual conversation. If this isn't available to you, then this book is close enough. I assume the tape would be a bonus if you can get it.

You can also join http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tagalog-e/ Here you can learn with others how to speak it or write it.

Far and away the best Tagalog book available
At last!A Tagalog course I can use!And tapes to go with it!

The Tagalog language has been long-neglected by publishers of language materials.This fine course helps make up for the deficiency.The lessons are very well-designed,the explanations of a grammar very different from our own are not difficult to follow,and there is a lot of interesting material about Filipino culture.Also,the tape I purchased with the book is excellent and an invaluable help in picking up the pronunciation.

Much has been made of the lack of accent marking in the text.I for one don't see why accents are not marked in the vocabulary lists for each lesson- that is the usual practice in texts on other languages with unpredictable accentuation- Russian,for instance- so that if the reader forgets the stress in the main body of the text,she can always refer back to the vocabulary. The book does have all entries in the back marked with accents,however it is a nuisance to have to consult the glossary to learn the stress of each new word,if you don't have the tape right at hand.That's a minor fault,however.

And I'm so happy to have a usable Tagalog course at last that I don't even mind.

This book is not for a self-instruction
I was pleasantly surprised to see a Teach Yourself Tagalog book was finally offered to the public. Upon opening the book, however, it was clear that the book would not do its job. The authors, for one thing, neglected to write stress marking on the Tagalog words so whoever uses this book and tries to pronounce will end up sounding like a blundering idiot. They had a lot of Tagalog literature at their disposal to help them with their explanations that it appears they didn't use. Whoever buys this book will have to ask a native to write the stress marking on each word so they can really learn to speak the Tagalog language. What a shame they published it in its current state! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

elementary exercices in Tagalog
This book is not for self-teaching students, but for students attending a Tagalog course or taking private lessons with a tutor as there are no keys to exercices. This is a book for beginners with a couple of weeks' initiation period behind them. The term "advanced" used in the preface is puzzling because the level is elementary. The authors still ignore the system of accents devised for Tagalog about a century ago so that their students will have to waste a lot of time checking the proper stress patterns in a dictionary. A good didactic book ought to have all the proper accents.

Beyond the Basic Level
If you read the back cover of this book, it states that is is for the student that has advanced beyond the basic level... it is exactly what it states, a grammar book that was written to follow after Dr. Ramos' book Tagalog Structures. I find this book very useful in furthering my knowledge of Tagalog and would recommend it to any serious student of the language.

NOT FOR NON-NATIVES
Be aware, this book is NOT FOR NON-NATIVE SPEAKERS! 80% or more of this book is in Tagalog. If your not a native speaker or don't know a lot of the language, best to steer clear of this title for now.

Great help
This is an excellent book for those of us who learn languages through a rules-based approach rather than the more common intuitive "use some common expressions and try to figure out why along the way" found in many books.

On the other hand, if you always hated and never understood grammar and prefer to just dive in to everyday language, you'll probably prefer one of the other books.

In either case, you'll probably want to remember that Teresita Ramos teaches proper Tagalog and some of the expressions/word choices in her books may not be the vernacular used on the streets of Makati.

Ultimately however, if you have an analytical vice artistic mind and need to understand things from a mechanical framework, this is the best book available.

Great Book!
Many people have reviewed this book as not being for begginers, on the contrary though its is a very good book for slightly learned begginers.

The reason why people may have stated that it's not for begginers is because of the lingo in the book particularly on the chapters on Pronounciation and Sentence Expansion. Those are probrably the only two chapters that are seriously even difficult. If you have trouble with any other chapter either A) your not really interested in learning the language structure and getting your setences grammatically correct and understandable, or B) the slight use of linguistics terms is confusing, although that can be cured by simply using an "online dictionary". (I didn't know what transitive and intransitive meant but I do know.) For the most part most of the technincality of this book doesn't rise into real high complexity.

This book is great because, it's concise, easy to read ,not to difficult to understand, and actually if you read closely you may notice some rules grammar-wise that you may not have been taught whic is why this is a great book. I use Modern Tagalog book with Basic Tagalog (which is not reccommended by me for slow begginers) because they complement each other well, in helping to improve the grammar.

The only negatives of this book is that although it does reveal extra grammar information sometimes like in the section on "May/Mayroon" and "Naka" you may be left hanging just a little bit. Also, it's not as complex and in-depth into the language as I thought it was gonna go so that disappointed me.

Great buy! ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (5)

Useful for teaching a class, but just as a guide
The best thing about this book is that it presents all kinds of situations that are culturally relevant to the Philippines, and are good conversation-starters for in-class dialogues and improvisation. With a teacher, the book can be quite useful, and the lessons are broken up neatly into 1-day segments, without depending much on the sequence in which they are used. The grammar is spotty and there are better places to go for that. (Wolff's books are the best for grammar in my opinion.) Also, this book won't tell you what many words mean, and even the vocab sections don't have pronunciations listed. This can be a problem, as it's not always clear how to find a work in a dictionary, plus accent often changes from the forms that you find in the dictionary. In short, this book is much less useful if you don't have a teacher that you see every day. Nonetheless, as far as I know, it is the most widely used book for instruction in Tagalog university courses around the US.

OK, but with reservations
For self-instruction, this book is just OK.It does provide a decent introduction to the vocabulary and grammar, but don't expect to be able to speak or understand much Tagalog at the end. The grammatical explanations are confined to describing the forms of the word, but almost nothing is said about HOW the forms are used (especially the different verb forms, the heart of the language).You will have no idea how to use an actor-focus verb versus an object-focus verb.On the other hand, I do like the vocabulary lists at the back that are arranged by topic. Ramos' strong point is providing some information about Filipino culture.This one not bad given some limitations; you could do worse.But for serious learners, I recommend Pilipino Through Self-Instruction, by John Wolff, et al., from Cornell.

O ano ba kumusta kayo?! This is a nice way to learn!
This was a wonderful. It is a great way to learn to speak tagalog and unlike other products almost everything I say, my Tagalog speaking friends understand just exactly what I'm talking about. If you buy this book you should Definitely buy a tagalog-english/english-tagalog dictionary because this book was designed for a class room that has a teacher to explain pronunciation and different words. It has a tagalog-english glossary in the back, but if you are like me (still learning) you will be looking back there (in the glossary) at least 4 to 5 times per page that you read and there is only a 50% chance that the word you will be looking for is there. By the end of this book you will have a better understanding of tagalog sentence structure, be able to speak conversationally in a variety of situation (not all situations), and will be impressing your filipinofriends and their famlies. O sige, Diyan ka na. Pupunta ako sa aklatan. Paalam

good introductory-level text
I found this book complimented my other books well in learning Tagalog. There are many gramatical explinations and good vocabulary builders. The focus is not pure memorization but to develop your skills in the languageand understand how it works.The text is probably better for a morestructured learning environment.It is not geared towards the "Teachyourself" learner.

a good place to start
This book does include many useful phrases, and will teach you some basic vocabulary.However, the instruction on grammar stops at giving examples of phrases.Given a slightly different situation, the examples you've memorized could be rendered useless.A good book for those going to the Philippines for the first time and those who want just enough to get by on.If your aim is fluency or actual conversation, however, I would look somewhere else. ... Read more

Product Description
When you need to get to the Manila whatchamacallit to catch a thingamajig to Cebu and book a whatsitsname for a few nights while you're at it, ope up and let some local words take you on your way.

Our phrasebooks give you a comprehensive mix of practical and social words and phrases in more than 120 languages. Chat with the locals and discover their culture - a guaranteed way to enrich your travel experience.
... Read more

Product Description
A comprehensive, one-year introductory textbook for Tagalog, the language spoken in the Philippines. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Bowen's Tagalog manual
It was the best manual when I started Tagalog in 1978, and I have the impression it is still the best.
My incompetent Filipino teacher didn't want to use it, so I left him, and studied Tagalog alone with the accompanying tapes although the book was originally intended for class use. This was possible because Bowen supplied an English translation.
The illustrations are in agreement with the style of the 1970s. Everything was done seriously. His phonetic transcriptions with the intonation pattern are rare and precious.
I only have two caveats.
1) The first one is about accents. Bowen didn't use accents on the vowels that required one. For example _Pára sa bunsô iyán._ is printed _Para sa bunso iyan._ "For the baby." This is a big shortcoming.
2) The second one is about Bowen's adding an [h] in the phonetic transcription to the end of words like _kayó_ "you pl." when they are before coda - [kayo.h] - whereas no such sound can be heard in this position. This final [h] should be removed.
These are about the only improvements I can see in view of a republication.

BEGINNING TAGLOG: A Course for Speaker of English
This book is a disappointment to me. The book assmes a classroom situation. It assumes a teacher,tapes, and a laboratory. I have none of the above. There are no instructions at the beginning of a Unit. I would advise against buying this book unless you are enrolled in a Tagalog class.

Great for begginers
This Tagalog textbook is great for beginners and is so easy to understand that it can be used to teach yourself the language. It is very straight forward and gives the reader the information that they need to be able to succeed in becoming efficient in Tagalog.

Aged but Experienced
The book, as some would point out, has been published over two decades ago. However, apart from being culturally outdated, I would definitely applaud in its efficiency. Basic grammar, vocabulary and common phrases were tackled so well that I sadly learned that I would no longer talk behind my husband's back in Tagalog. :p (He is, though, very interested in language, so persistence played a huge part)

Bottom line: The book offers great instruction; it presents a good structure of the language and is something I would definitely recommend, if the person learning does not mind the age of the publication date.

Don't lose the drawings!
I am very glad this is back in print, as an old dusty copy (sans the original reel-to-reel tapes) in my university library gave me good foundation in Tagalog. Personally, I love the drawings! So what if they are from the 1960's; the inspired me to learn Tagalog just as my old Hayden books inspired me to learn electronics: retro drawings are cool!

If this is an exact reproduction of the original, it is helpful for teachers of Tagalog, as well as students. It makes it clear how to construct the different aspects (nominative, benefactive, locative, imperative, etc.) and actually names them in such a way that makes more sense than more recent books on Tagalog grammar (Aspillera, Ramos, Alejandro, for example).

Today's language teachers might see the audiolingual apprach as a throwback, but drilling myself before spending a summer in the Philippines was worthwhile. The notes on stress and pronunciation are accurate, at least to my ears, and the example sentences have lines above them to guide the learner with sentence stress.

I wish this book came with a CD, not an audiocassette, and encourage the publisher to get with the times. Other than that, the price is right for a complete first-year Tagalog learning system! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

4000 entries. Contains basic words, slang, other entries
Excellent. A basic Tagalog/English dictionary. I used it when I was learning Tagalog among the Philippino people in the Bay Area. A complement to the two other books by Ramos. Great for basic interpretation andunderstanding Tagalog words, assuming one understands grammar andconjugation of verbs, etc. ... Read more

Product Description
This handy, convenient volume is the ideal dictionary for beginning students and travelers. Featuring the essential vocabulary appropriate to beginning and lower intermediate students, the Pocket Tagalog Dictionary covers all the words needed for the everyday situations encountered by travelers.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

not very complete
Tagalog is very hard to me. This is for the quick vacation guide which will serve you well in that way. The thing is almost all Filipinos speak English and some speaks other languages as well.

pocket tagalog dictionary
My Dad arrived here in US couple of months.He told me he forgot his book at the Philippines. so he told me to buy one for him. I checked out Books a Million but I did not find it.. Ive been buying books here at Amazon.com so I tried luckily I found it. so far my dad like it..

not meant to be exhaustive..
If you are looking for a good basic one, easy to carry around, look no further. This is a nice handy dictionary.

If you are wanting an exhaustive dictionary, obviously don't get a pocket one. This fits the caliber like it should.

Great English-Tagalog dictionary
This is a great English-Tagalog dictionary - actually one of the only ones that I found while searching.It's thin enough to carry in your pocket or to place in a bag.Shipping was breif.

Adequate
I used this book as a supplement to a Tagalog class.I am a Filipina, born & raised in the US and can understand the language & I needed a refresher course on certain words.It does have the most common words, the book itself is thin, about the size of a paperbook so it's not exactly "pocket-sized." But it can fit into a small purse. ... Read more

Product Description
This text approaches the grammar of Tagalog through an examination of word formation, sentence construction, and sentence types. There is also a discussion of the phonology. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

a good grammar book of Tagalog
This is a good grammar book with straightforward explanations. Although almost 40 years old, I think it is still the best book on the market at the present moment. My only caveat is that the author does not know how to use the accent system of Tagalog, a suprising thing from someone teaching the language. For instance "child" is spelt báta' whereas it should be spelt batà or bátà; "nothing" is written wala instead of walâ (last syllable stressed and closed by the glottal stop), etc. Also accents are not used systematically, many sentences are left without accents. Imagine a similar book about Czech, French, Spanish without their accents!

A concise review of Tagalog grammar
This book is excellent for those who learned some Tagalog word and expressions and like to see the structure behind this language.The way Tagalog is structured is very different from Western languages, so if you want to learn it from scrap then "Conversational Tagalog" by Teresita Ramos is the book you need; if you want to clarify your ideas on the language rules or if you love grammar, this book is an excellent introduction. ... Read more