ASEAN Hive Community Challenge #127: Language Lessons

It's been a while since I joined the community challenge... and when I saw the topic this time around, I thought, "Oh, that's something I could talk about!"

For ASEAN Hive Community Challenge this week, we are to share our experiences related to "Language Lessons".





First things first, I'm from the Philippines and although English is considered an official language in my country, we don't really use it in our everyday conversation. Well, we do mix it with our spoken language from time to time.

For instance, instead of saying, Dugay naman ta wala magkita. Gimingaw na ko nimo. (It's been a while since we met, I already miss you.) We say, "Dugay naman ta wala magkita. I miss you na."

Sometimes, it's just more natural to use the English expression... like when we're greeting someone on their birthday, we just say Happy Birthday! instead of Maayong adlawng natawhan!




If someone asks me what my mother tongue or native language is, I usually answer Bisaya or Cebuano. The concept of language and dialect is quite a debatable thing in the Philippines. When I was a student, I was taught that Cebuano or Bisaya is a dialect and not a language. However, if we go by definition:

• Language - a body of words and the systems for their use common to a people who are of the same community or nation, the same geographical area, or the same cultural tradition
• Dialect - a regional variety of language distinguished by features of vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation from other regional varieties and constituting together with them a single language

In my understanding, Bisaya or Cebuano is a language.

Another common debate is that "Is Cebuano different from Bisaya?". What I know is that Cebuano is the language spoken in the island of Cebu and at times we call it Bisaya. However, there are different kinds of Bisaya... like the one spoken in my father's hometown San Carlos City in Negros. There's just a bit of a nuance.

In Cebuano, we say "kayo" for fire, but in my father's hometown, they call it "kalayo". However, there are other types of Binisaya language which is very different. For example, in Cebuano, we say "lami" which means "delicious", but in Hiligaynon (Ilonggo), it's "namit".

Cebuano and Hiligaynon are the top two spoken Binisaya languages in the Philippines. It's confusing, so I just base the language on the place where the person came from.

As for FILIPINO, it's basically a standardized variety of the native language called Tagalog. It's mostly spoken in the northern part of the Philippines. And since it's considered our national language, we had to learn it at school. I personally don't use it that often. It's also a bit awkward for me to speak it because I have a strong Cebuano accent when I speak Filipino.




To be honest, I'm more confident in speaking English than in speaking Filipino because I use the language every day at work. I do love listening to Filipino songs, but ironically, there are terms that I don't understand that I sometimes had to check the English translation of the word. T_T

I fell in love with English when I was in third year high school. My teacher that time was so fun and she taught us a lot of amusing things to utilize English... especially creative writing. That's the time when I started writing poems, short stories and so on. That's also the time I actually got into expressing myself freely through writing. And the language I'm most comfortable with in terms of writing, until now, is English.

Despite that, I never imagined I'd end up being an English teacher to foreign learners. I thought, I just like using it and teaching it would be a different story, but I've been doing so for more than 10 years now. :)



Then, Japanese came to my life...

Well, I've been watching Japanese anime since I was very young but I've never thought of learning the language until I became a university student. That time, I was so into J-pop, Japanese drama and anime. I couldn't live without them. lol And that passion for those things made me want to learn Japanese.

Whenever I have free time, I go to the university library and drown myself in Japanese books. Self-studying a language is a struggle, but I enjoyed it. It was an on and off thing for me, though.

Around 2014, I started teaching in an English Academy. My students were mostly Koreans, but there were also a decent number of Japanese students there. The Japanese students I met there encouraged me to learn Japanese more.

This is a book of idioms that one of my students gave me. She used this to learn English, but the Japanese translations can be very helpful as well.

Another student gave me this book when she came back to Cebu for a vacation.

Here's a novel I got from my student as a remembrance.

Compared to those days, I study Japanese less now. I still have some of the notes I made in the past. Let me show you some of them...





One of my uncles used to go to a language school because he originally planned to work in Japan. When he knew that I'm self-studying the language, he gave me his book. Everything was in Hiragana and Katakana, but luckily I've memorized these two writing systems beforehand. I just had to translate the book and above is a part of the notes I made from that source.





I also used to have this small Japanese grammar book I purchased at the local bookshop. I also jot down some important points from that book. I gave that book to one of my cousins who's also trying to learn the language.




When I was teaching in the English academy, one of my Japanese friends helped me practice. He'd give me a question and I'd write my answer in an essay form in Japanese. He used to have a class near my room, so during his 10-minute break before the next class, he'd drop by my room and practice speaking with me. It was really helpful.




While I was going through my stuff, I saw this folder. They're some Japanese lessons from NHK that I downloaded and printed years ago. There are 50 lessons in total and when I checked, I've only studied until lesson 9. I should try reviewing the previous lessons and study the rest.

Recently, I don't study Japanese as much. My listening skill has surely improved due to watching anime, but I still have a long way to go. I want to focus on Kanji and learn as many words as I can. This way, it would be easier to apply the grammar rules when I create sentences.

I believe this challenge reminded me to continue learning Japanese. I don't intend to travel Japan anytime soon, but knowing the language is such a joy. Watching anime and singing songs in the language would be more fun if I understand them fully without relying on subtitles or translations. I should add this to my schedule!

Thanks for checking my entry... See you around!