How to learn Filipino by reading

Filipino is the national language of the Philippines, a standardized form of Tagalog that is spoken and understood across the country’s many islands and languages. English is also an official language, and in everyday life the two mix freely in what Filipinos call Taglish. On the page, though, books and textbooks written in Filipino use the standard language, and that’s what reading teaches.

Filipino is written in the Latin alphabet with regular spelling, and centuries of contact have filled it with words an English or Spanish speaker can recognize: mesa (table), kutsara (spoon), bintana (window), kompyuter. Its literature runs from Francisco Balagtas’s nineteenth-century verse romance Florante at Laura to modern novels such as Lualhati Bautista’s Dekada ’70. The country’s national hero, José Rizal, wrote his famous novels in Spanish.

What makes Filipino hard to read

• Focus. The verb’s form shows which noun the sentence is about, and that noun takes the marker ang. Bumili ang bata ng mangga means “the child bought a mango,” with the focus on the child; binili ng bata ang mangga means “the child bought the mango,” with the focus on the mango.
• Markers. Small words organize the sentence: ang marks the noun in focus, ng (pronounced “nang”) marks other nouns, and sa marks places, directions and recipients. Names have their own set: si, ni and kay.
• Aspect instead of tense. Verbs show whether an action is completed, ongoing or not yet begun: kumain (ate), kumakain (is eating), kakain (will eat). The doubled first syllable is a signal to watch for.
• Infixes. Some affixes go inside the word rather than at its edge: sulat (write) becomes sumulat and sinulat.
• Linkers. Adjectives and nouns are joined with na or -ng: magandang bahay and bahay na maganda both mean “a beautiful house.”
• Word order. Sentences usually start with the predicate, often a verb: Guro si Maria, “Maria is a teacher.” Formal writing often flips this with ay: Si Maria ay guro.
• Two kinds of “we.” Tayo includes the person you’re talking to; kami leaves them out. Stories use the difference to show who’s on whose side.
• Borrowed numbers. Filipino counts with its own numbers (isa, dalawa, tatlo) but tells the time with Spanish ones: alas-dos is two o’clock. Prices and dates often switch to Spanish or English numbers too.
• Respect. Po and opo add politeness toward elders and strangers, and in dialogue they tell you who is speaking to whom.

Filipino reading at each level

How the CEFR levels look in Filipino text:

• A2, elementary. Short sentences with common actor-focus verbs (-um-, mag-), the markers ang, ng and sa, simple linkers, and everyday vocabulary.
• B1, intermediate. Object-focus verbs (-in, i-, -an), all three aspects, ay sentences, and longer sentences joined with dahil, kapag and pero.
• B2, upper intermediate. The full range of focus forms, verbs of ability and accident with maka- and ma-, and a more literary vocabulary.
• C1, advanced. Close to the original text, with light condensing. C2 is the complete book.

New to the CEFR? Start with CEFR levels explained.

The Count of Monte Cristo at A2 and at B2

Dumas’s novel has a special place in the Philippines: Rizal’s El Filibusterismo, whose hero returns in disguise to take revenge, is often compared with it. Two moments, written for this page at two levels:

A2

Si Edmond Dantès ay isang batang marino. Malapit na siyang ikasal kay Mercédès. Pero sa mismong araw ng kasal, hinuli siya ng mga sundalo.

Edmond Dantès is a young sailor. He is about to marry Mercédès. But on the wedding day itself, soldiers arrested him.

B2

Matapos ang labing-apat na taon sa bilangguan, nakatakas si Dantès. Sa tulong ng kayamanang itinuro sa kanya ni Abbé Faria, nagbalik siya bilang mayaman at misteryosong Konde ng Monte Cristo.

After fourteen years in prison, Dantès escaped. With the help of the treasure Abbé Faria had told him about, he returned as the rich and mysterious Count of Monte Cristo.

The A2 text opens with an ay sentence, uses the linker -ng (batang marino, “young sailor”; siyang ikasal, “he… to be married”; it’s also in isang and mismong), and ends in object focus: in hinuli siya ng mga sundalo, Dantès (siya) is in focus, and the soldiers (ng mga sundalo) did the arresting. The B2 text adds nakatakas, “managed to escape,” a verb of ability, the linker in kayamanang itinuro, “the treasure that was pointed out,” with itinuro in object focus, and ni Abbé Faria, the marker for a named person who performs the action.

A daily Filipino reading routine

1. Pair your eyes and ears. Play a few pages with the read-along on, so each word lights up as you hear it. Filipino spelling is regular, so the audio mainly teaches rhythm and stress, which can change a word’s meaning.
2. Find the focus. In each sentence, look for ang (or si before a name, or a pronoun like siya) and ask why the verb puts that noun in focus. After a while it becomes instinct.
3. Tap for the root. When affixes and doubled syllables hide a word, tap it. The card gives you the base form.
4. Reread. Focus forms and markers repeat on every page, and second readings are where they settle in.

Read at a level where most words are already familiar. Hu and Nation (2000, “Unknown vocabulary density and reading comprehension”) estimated that most learners need to know about 98 percent of the words in a fiction text to understand it adequately without help. In Filipino, the many English and Spanish loanwords give you a head start on that, but grammar words like ang, ng and sa still need to become automatic first. See the 98% rule, extensive reading and reading while listening.

Classics to start with

• The Count of Monte Cristo is a gripping revenge story with a special resonance in the Philippines, at B2.
• Treasure Island is fast and full of dialogue, an ideal first novel at A2 or B1.
• Robinson Crusoe is concrete and practical, full of everyday words for building and surviving on an island.
• The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes has short cases with a puzzle and a solution, well suited to B1 and B2.
• Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is short and playful, good at A2 or B1.

How Lexo helps with Filipino

Filipino is fully narrated in Lexo. The whole book is read aloud, with different voices for different characters, and each word lights up as it’s spoken; every word can also be played on its own, which helps with stress that changes a word’s meaning.

Tap a word and a card shows what it means in that sentence, its base form and its part of speech, which helps when an infix or a doubled syllable has disguised a root you know. The card also explains any phrase or idiom the word belongs to and translates the sentence into English; useful words can go into your Words list. Sentence-by-sentence mode shows one sentence at a time with its audio and translation.

Choose a level per book, from A2 to C2. If you’re the first to ask for a book in Filipino at your level, Lexo writes it for you: chapter 1 is ready in a few minutes, the rest follows while you read, and you keep a dated “First edition” mark. Books download for offline reading on iPhone and iPad, and purchases go through your Apple ID, so there’s no account to create.

Filipino’s Spanish loanwords make Spanish a natural companion, and its closest relative on this site is Indonesian, another Austronesian language.

Lexo is coming soon to the App Store for iPhone and iPad. Get notified at launch.