Hi Everyone. My name is Don. I am a native English speaker. I am currently trying to decide what language to learn. It is between Spanish and Tagalog. Spanish seems like the more practical language to learn. I work in New York and there are a large number of native Spanish speakers everywhere. It would offer a large pool of speakers to practice with. Tagalog is my wife’s native language. It would be fun to learn Tagalog just for that. My head says Spanish my heart says Tagalog. I would love to hear from anyone that has had a similar choice to make.
Nice to meet you all
Don
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Re: Introduce yourself here
Dxn2 wrote:Tagalog is my wife’s native language. It would be fun to learn Tagalog just for that. My head says Spanish my heart says Tagalog. I would love to hear from anyone that has had a similar choice to make.
I had an easier decision! My wife spoke French, which is a popular language.
Do you travel to the Philippines to visit any of your wife's family? Do you spend any significant amount of time around people who only speak a bit of English? If this is the case, Tagalog can be a very practical choice. I would always warmly recommend learning your spouse's native language, provided you'll get a realistic chance to use it.
But if you don't voyage to Philippines, and you don't interact much with Tagalog-speaking relatives of your wife, then maybe it's a less practical choice. That doesn't mean you should necessarily choose Spanish.
Tagalog may be more challenging for a few reasons:
- English speakers get a huge discount "buying" Spanish, because it shares a ton of romance language vocabulary, and because the verb system has some major similarities (at least until you learn the subjunctive). But you'll "pay full price" for Tagalog. It's a Category III language according to the US government. You could expect to do twice as much work in Tagalog for the same results.
- You have easy access to wide variety of Spanish-language media. This makes the intermediate stage fun and easy, because you can read a lot of books and watch a lot of a TV, and make rapid progress.
- You may find it challenging to use a substantial amount of Tagalog at home. I decided to just start speaking French at home one day, and it was a struggle for both my wife and I, because I suddenly had the speaking ability of a toddler. I improved rapidly, but it took a major effort from both of us.
Personally, if you do spend extended chunks of time around Tagalog speakers, learning Tagalog is likely to be extremely rewarding. I cannot tell you how much more fun it is to visit France now that I can [I]talk[I]. Talking and listening are such basic skills, and they open up a whole world.
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I deliberately started Indonesian because my wife is a speaker and her mother really only speaks Javanese most of the time (as do most of the family), but knows Indonesian and a lot of Malay. It seemed to me a great waste not to make use of the opportunity on my doorstep. I also think it's a fine gesture to speak the language of the person you love when you don't both have the same native language. Just in case they gossip about you with the family... (that's a joke).
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Re: Introduce yourself here
Dxn2 wrote:Hi Everyone. My name is Don. I am a native English speaker. I am currently trying to decide what language to learn. It is between Spanish and Tagalog. Spanish seems like the more practical language to learn. I work in New York and there are a large number of native Spanish speakers everywhere. It would offer a large pool of speakers to practice with. Tagalog is my wife’s native language. It would be fun to learn Tagalog just for that. My head says Spanish my heart says Tagalog. I would love to hear from anyone that has had a similar choice to make.
Nice to meet you all
Don
Welcome!
It's not a choice I've had to make, but I would say, it's seems one of those things you weigh, is your only reason for learning Spanish is because there's so many native speakers you can practice with? If so, I'd probably be inclined to go with your heart, because then it sounds like Spanish is convenient, but Tagalog is your desire, though of course Spanish has a huge wealth of language learning tools compared to Tagalog, but that doesn't matter if you find resources for Tagalog that work for you. I think if the desire and drive is there, there's a higher chance of you sticking to it. If there are bigger benefits to you learning Spanish, then I would start to compare your reasons and what is more valuable to you.
But Tagalog sounds like the thing that could connect with your wife and her family and I expect that has personal benefits, but I figure you'd be the best judge of that. And I know my friend learned Polish because he works around so many Polish people, so if you're working or living with a lot of Spanish speakers, maybe I can see benefit there too.
Where I guess I can speak from experience is maybe a third option of "why not both?" in which case it means a choice of picking which one you want to learn first and my choice in that regard came down to "which one am I going to need to use first?" I learned Vietnamese for a year before I started with Mongolian. Basically I felt I needed to have a good enough foundation in Vietnamese before I start with a second language. And I could have started on my Mongolian sooner than a year, but I ended up taking a pretty casual approach to my Vietnamese. I've managed to keep the two separate from each other and they don't conflict, but I do find if I don't know something in Mongolian (this early on, it's a lot of things) then my brain tries to find the answer in Vietnamese, but I've not accidentally said Vietnamese instead of Mongolian, so it's not like the time I said "danke schon" instead of "muchos gracias" to a waiter in Spain...
But the good news is, with the internet...it makes so many languages more accessible, especially with all the tools out there these days. So if you were struggling for Tagalog speakers beyond your wife, there's so many online services out there to connect you with people. For example, I just finished a 45 minute conversation in Vietnamese over Zoom.
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Re: Introduce yourself here
Yo,
I’ve browsed on here for a while now but finally made an account so I could keep a language log on here. I’m learning Latin right now and mean to get real good at it. I’ve studied Italian, French and Spanish before but never got very far… I can understand a fair bit of written Spanish though.
I’ve browsed on here for a while now but finally made an account so I could keep a language log on here. I’m learning Latin right now and mean to get real good at it. I’ve studied Italian, French and Spanish before but never got very far… I can understand a fair bit of written Spanish though.
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Re: Introduce yourself here
Hello, everyone.
I am a long time fan of language learning but never managed to keep consistent.
My goal is to learn enough German to be able to read or listen german audiobooks without much difficulty.
I want to keep a language learning log and this is why I chose this forum.
I am a long time fan of language learning but never managed to keep consistent.
My goal is to learn enough German to be able to read or listen german audiobooks without much difficulty.
I want to keep a language learning log and this is why I chose this forum.
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Re: Introduce yourself here
Hello my name is Paul. I grew up in the United States but recently moved to Mexico and I just started learning spanish today. I joined this forum to search for any wisdom on how to learn Spanish since this will be my first time learning a second language. I also plan to learn German after I learn Spanish.
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Re: Introduce yourself here
Hello my name is Paul. I recently created an account here but I somehow got locked out of my gmail account and therefore lost access to this website so I was forced to create a new email and then this new account. I just moved to Mexico from USA and am currently studying Spanish.
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Re: Introduce yourself here
Hey guys,
I'm a Bulgarian native trying to learn Levantine Arabic.
If you need help with Bulgarian or somebody to speak with feel free to contact me.
I'm a Bulgarian native trying to learn Levantine Arabic.
If you need help with Bulgarian or somebody to speak with feel free to contact me.
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Re: Introduce yourself here
Hi,
English native, really want to hone in on my Spanish learning.
I am struggling to make that step to truly understand the speed and accuracy with my listening, so that will be a big focus in 2023.
I will look to obtain more vocabulary and eventually feel comfortable in expressing myself in Spanish.
Thanks
English native, really want to hone in on my Spanish learning.
I am struggling to make that step to truly understand the speed and accuracy with my listening, so that will be a big focus in 2023.
I will look to obtain more vocabulary and eventually feel comfortable in expressing myself in Spanish.
Thanks
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