Comprehensive Tagalog I includes 30 lessons of essential grammar and vocabulary -- 16 hours of real-life spoken practice sessions -- plus an introduction to reading.

Upon completion of this Level I program, you will have functional spoken proficiency with the most-frequently-used vocabulary and grammatical structures. You will be able to:

* initiate and maintain face-to-face conversations,
* deal with every day situations -- ask for information, directions, and give basic information about yourself and family,
* communicate basic information on informal topics and participate in casual conversations,
* avoid basic cultural errors and handle minimum courtesy and travel requirements,
* satisfy personal needs and limited social demands,
* establish rapport with strangers in foreign countries,
* begin reading and sounding out items with native-like pronunciation.

 

About Tagalog

Tagalog is one of the major languages of the Republic of the Philippines. It is the most spoken Philippine language in terms of the number of speakers.

Tagalog, as its de facto standardized counterpart, Filipino, is the principal language of the national media in the Philippines. It is the primary language of public education. As Filipino, it is, along with English, a co-official language and the sole national language. Tagalog is widely used as a lingua franca throughout the country, and in overseas Filipino communities. However, while Tagalog may be prevalent in those fields, English, to varying degrees of fluency, is more prevalent in the fields of government and business.

Tagalog History

The word Tagalog derived from tagá-ílog, from tagá- meaning "native of" and ílog meaning "river", thus, it means "river dweller." There are no surviving written samples of Tagalog before the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th century. Very little is known about the history of the language. However, according to linguists such as Dr. David Zorc and Dr. Robert Blust, the Tagalogs originated, along with their Central Philippine cousins, from northeastern Mindanao or eastern Visayas

The first known book to be written in Tagalog is the Doctrina Cristiana (Christian Doctrine) of 1593. It was written in Spanish and two versions of Tagalog; one written in Baybayin and the other in the Latin alphabet.

Throughout the 333 years of Spanish occupation, there have been grammars and dictionaries written by Spanish clergymen such as Vocabulario de la Lengua Tagala by Pedro de San Buenaventura (Pila, Laguna, 1613), Vocabulario de la lengua tagala (1835) and Arte de la lengua tagala y manual tagalog para la adminstración de los Santos Sacramentos (1850).

Poet Francisco "Balagtas" Baltazar (1788-1862) is regarded as the foremost Tagalog writer. His most famous work is the early 19th-century Florante at Laura.

In 1937, Tagalog was selected as the basis of the national language by the National Language Institute. In 1959, Tagalog, which had been renamed Wikang Pambansa ("National Language") by President Manuel L. Quezon in 1939, was renamed by the Secretary of Education, Jose Romero, as Pilipino to give it a national rather than ethnicity label and connotation. The changing of the name did not, however, result in better acceptance at the conscious level among non-Tagalogs, especially Cebuanos who had not accepted the selection. In 1971, the language issue was revived once more,and a compromise solution was worked out — a ‘universalist’ approach to the national language, to be called Filipino rather than Pilipino. When a new constitution was drawn up in 1987, it named Filipino as the national language. The constitution specified that as that Filipino language evolves, it shall be further developed and enriched on the basis of existing Philippine and other languages.