How can I learn Tagalog or Ilocano w/o buying anything?

One Comment

1. Dave says:

   October 19, 2009 at 1:34 am

   There are a lot of free resources that you can use to learn Tagalog. The best way to learn is to find someone (Filipino) to practice with. There’s no better way to learn than to immerse yourself in the language with native speakers.

   You’ll want some good reference material as well. There’s a great online dictionary and other Tagalog reference tools that you can find here:

   http://www.seasite.niu.edu/Tagalog/Tagalog_mainpage.htm

   Look in the "Tagalog Tools" section to find the dictionaries. Also, you’ll find a good book to start with in "Basic Tagalog" which actually appears to be available online on Google Books:

   http://books.google.com/books?id=C84jnF1okoMC&printsec=frontcover

   Lastly, I’d highly recommend watching Filipino television programs. You’ll be able to hear a lot of Tagalog spoken by native speakers in natural conversations – something that you won’t get by reading alone. You might see if you can subscribe to The Filipino Channel (TFC) via cable or satellite TV. If it isn’t available to you then you can get pretty much all the shows shown on TFC and more on ABS-CBN’s website for a small monthly fee – http://now.abs-cbn.com While you have to pay for most of the shows there, some of them can be seen for free.

   As for Ilocano, I don’t know of any resources available for it. I learned some Ilocano before, but it was while living in the Philippines and I’ve forgotten most of it simply because I didn’t have anyone to practice with.