My Son is Learning Filipino (Tagalog)

I have four children ranging in age from 44 to 51 years old residing here in US. The three were born in US , but all of them grew up without learning how to speak Tagalog, the Filipino national language that my wife and I speak at home, besides English and a little Spanish as well as the Ilongo dialect, the dialect that I grew up with. When my children were growing up, I was a graduate student at the University of Illinois in Chicago. We resided in the Staff Apartment of the University. We have no Filipino neighbors and the playmates of our children were all English speaking. We have a Filipina psychiatrist friend residing nearby our apartment. We consulted her, if it is wise to teach the children Tagalog. She advised us not to teach the children the language, since she felt, it will just confuse them. This advise was the worst advise we had received, judging from what my children are telling us today.

My oldest son studied Tagalog at University of California in Berkeley during his undergraduate student days. Because, he was not speaking it daily, he has forgotten what he has studied and currently can not speak the language. My second son, however, insisted on speaking to us in Tagalog, in spite of his American accent, after he took a Tagalog course in an evening class in our local junior college. He purchased a Tagalog-English dictionary. He has also video lessons, where could listen to the real Filipino accent. He is improving in his proficiency and vocabulary of the language. His accent, however, is still very American, that sometimes we have to ask him to repeat what he is saying since we can not understand him.

Two years ago, at our 50th Wedding Anniversary, he gave his congratulatory speech in Tagalog. He was the talk of the town and received thunderous applause after his talk. The guests enjoyed his courage to speak in public with his little knowledge of the language.

This morning, I found my son glued in our newly purchased 42'' LCD TV screen practicing his accent. He had purchased another video with a Filipino pronouncing the Tagalog words with pictures. My son live with us, since he is single. He takes care of the house, the yard and pool when we are in the Philippines. Someday, he wants to retire in the Philippines and his knowledge of Tagalog will indeed be useful. I am so proud of my son learning our native language. As for the my other three children, they have no intention of retiring in the Philippines, so learning Tagalog is not one of their concerns. My advise to the second, or third generation Filipinos residing in US, Canada or other parts of the world is to teach your children the language in their formative years ( 2 to 4 years old). You will never know that in the future, they might want to visit or live in the Philippines.

(Note: Since most Filipinos speak English, visiting the big cities in the Philippines will not be a problem if you can not speak Tagalog. However, if you plan on retiring in the provinces in the Philippines, it is to your advantage that you know the language, so you could easily communicate with the locals, your maids, your gardener, your laundry woman and also the local rural folks who are not college graduates. Speaking the local language will make you feel at home also and part of the community.)