This is a straightforward and user-friendly guide to the Tagalog language. Tagalog for Beginners is the book to help you learn Tagalog (Filipino) on your own, efficiently and accurately--whether you're traveling to the Philippines for a vacation or a business trip, or you have ties to the sizeable Tagalog-speaking community in the U.S., or you're merely a language lover. From the fascinating history of Philippines' language to how you speak it, join skilled teacher Barrios on a guided introduction--with a practical focus. After journeying through the carefully-paced explanations, conversations, cultural info, and activities in Tagalog for Beginners, learners will be able to use Tagalog (Filipino) in a wide range of natural situations. From shopping for food to asking directions, from telling time to expressing how you feel, this book gives you the communication skills you need. The downloadable audio helps reinforce pronunciation and improve listening comprehension. Helpful suggestions guide heritage learners (those of Filipino descent but born outside the Philippines) on how to use the book most effectively for their needs. Key features include:: Accompanying downloadable audio. Realistic dialogues to bring the language to life. Activities and exercises to help you read, write, speak and understand. Notes on the Tagalog language and history. A specific section guides native (heritage) learners and instructors on how to use the book most effectively for their needs.

Over the last twenty years or so, most of the work on the syntax of Philippine languages has been focused on the question of whether or not these languages can be said to have grammatical subjects, and if so which argument of a basic transitive clause should be analysed as being the subject. Paul Kroeger's contribution to this debate asserts that grammatical relations such as subject and object are syntactic notions, and must be identified on the basis of syntactic properties, rather than by semantic roles or discourse functions. A large number of syntactic processes in Tagalog uniquely select the argument which bears the nominative case. On the other hand, the data which have been used in the debate to assert the ambiguity of subjecthood are best analysed in terms of semantic rather than syntactic constraints. Together these facts support an analysis that takes the nominative argument as the subject. Kroeger examines the history of the subjecthood debate and uses data from Tagalog to test the theories that have been put forth. His conclusions entail consequences for certain linguistic concepts and theories, and lead Kroeger to assert that grammatical relations are not defined in terms of surface phrase structure configurations, contrary to the assumptions of many approaches to syntax including the Government-Binding theory. Paul Kroeger is presently doing fieldwork in Austronesian languages and teaching linguistics to fieldworkers from around the world.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • For anyone who wants to learn a foreign language, this is the method that will finally make the words stick. “A brilliant and thoroughly modern guide to learning new languages.”—Gary Marcus, cognitive psychologist and author of the New York Times bestseller Guitar Zero At thirty years old, Gabriel Wyner speaks six languages fluently. He didn’t learn them in school—who does? Rather, he learned them in the past few years, working on his own and practicing on the subway, using simple techniques and free online resources—and here he wants to show others what he’s discovered. Starting with pronunciation, you’ll learn how to rewire your ears and turn foreign sounds into familiar sounds. You’ll retrain your tongue to produce those sounds accurately, using tricks from opera singers and actors. Next, you’ll begin to tackle words, and connect sounds and spellings to imagery rather than translations, which will enable you to think in a foreign language. And with the help of sophisticated spaced-repetition techniques, you’ll be able to memorize hundreds of words a month in minutes every day. This is brain hacking at its most exciting, taking what we know about neuroscience and linguistics and using it to create the most efficient and enjoyable way to learn a foreign language in the spare minutes of your day.

This portable, user–friendly Tagalog language guide, phrasebook and dictionary is the cheapest and easiest way to learn Tagalog before and during your trip. If you only want to purchase one Tagalog language book—Essential Tagalog is the way to go. Part of Tuttle Publishing's Essential Series, it is a great first introduction and beginner guide to the language of the Philippines and is also designed as a Tagalog phrasebook, making it the most versatile Tagalog language learning tool on the market. Perfect for business people or tourist traveling to the Philippines who want to supplement their learning, this book's easy indexing feature allows it to act as a Tagalog phrase book or as an English–Tagalog Dictionary. A clever "point to" feature allows you to simply point to a phrase translated in Tagalog without the need to say a single word. You will soon find yourself turning to Essential Tagalog again and again when visiting the Philippines and working or interacting with Filipinos. In this book you will find: Over 1500 practical sentences for everyday use. A glossary of over 200 terms and expressions. Terms and phrases covering essential aspects of traveling and living in the Philippines. Extensive information about Chinese grammar and pronunciation. This beginner Tagalog book will help you to quickly and easily learn Tagalog. Your ability to read Tagalog, write Tagalog, speak Tagalog, and comprehend Tagalog will be vastly improved without having to take an entire Tagalog language class. Other titles in this bestselling series of phrasebooks include: Essential Japanese, Essential Chinese, Essential Korean, Essential Tagalog, and Essential Arabic.

At last, a way to improve your Tagalog! Written by Joi Barrios as the continuation of her best-selling Tagalog for Beginners book, Intermediate Tagalog is the first intermediate-level book designed specifically for people who already speak or understand some basic Tagalog and now wish to achieve greater fluency in speaking, reading and writing standard Filipino--the national language of the Philippines. The carefully-constructed lessons in this book point out common grammatical errors that English speakers make when speaking Tagalog, and present "real-life" conversations demonstrating how the language is spoken in Manila today. Extensive cultural notes are provided, along with exercises and activities that introduce the use of the Tagalog language in a wide range of everyday situations. The 20 lessons give you all the basic skills needed to speak Tagalog fluently: paglalarawan (the ability to describe people, places and feelings); pagsasalaysay (the ability to tell a story--whether a news story, a folktale, or an anecdote); paglalahad (how to explain something--for example, a custom or tradition, or how to cook a dish); and pangangatuwiran (reasoning and abstract thinking). Each lesson is carefully structured in six key parts: A "real-life" dialogue providing valuable conversational skills. A vocabulary list to expand your familiarity with common, everyday Tagalog words and expressions. A grammar review section (for example, on the correct uses of affixes in various sentence constructions). Insightful cultural notes presenting aspects of the Philippines that may seem "odd" to outsiders, to explain how Filipino culture shapes the way people speak. A reading passage from a story or newspaper article, with comprehension questions. A writing exercise designed to teach a specific writing skill. Using Intermediate Tagalog, you'll be able to talk about yourself, your family and your daily experiences using grammatically correct sentences and a native-speaker level vocabulary.

Essential Tagalog Grammar: A Reference for Learners of Tagalog offers clear, simple and concise explanations and lots of practical everyday examples in a simple well-organized format. This comprehensive and user-friendly grammar also provides accurate definitions and translations, pronunciation marks (all long vowels and glottal stops are indicated throughout the book), extensive cross-referencing and a comprehensive index. Free audio recordings of the examples in the chapter on pronunciation can be downloaded from learningtagalog.com. Essential Tagalog Grammar is recommended for learners of Tagalog who want to understand how the language works and have a quick reference handy, native speakers who want to gain insights into their own language, and anyone who wants to gain a deeper understanding of Tagalog grammar.