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Showing posts from November, 2020

The Filipino Toxic Culture and How to Deal With It.

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I have been married to a Filipina for 20 years now and I know a thing or two about the Philippines and its culture. I do love the Philippines and its outstanding landscapes, its mixture of Spanish, Asian and American architectures, its cuisine and so much more, and I would go back there one million times to explore every nook and cranny of the archipelago. What are some of the toxic traits of the Filipino mentality? But, unfortunately, the Philippines is not just those amazing and fascinating things. It is also some of the nasty things that, from time to time, I mention in my blog and that qualify as "toxic". These include: Bahala-na (basically leaving things to chance and then expecting a higher power to take care of the consequences) Ningas kugon (when Filipinos have no clear plans or goals and their plans and goals easily fizzle out) Filipino time (the habit of always showing up late at an appointment or not showing up at all)
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Italian for Filipinos (and Foreigners in General)

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L'Italia è un bel paese (Italy is a beautiful country) Here in Italy we have a population of over 300,000 Filipinos. What makes communication difficult between Italian employers and their Filipino domestic helpers is the language barrier, as few Italians, including highly educated ones, are fluent in English and Filipinos (who, generally speaking are rather fluent in English) really struggle to learn Italian. I have published a few posts, both in Tagalog and in English, about Tagalog (for the benefit of foreign expatriates in the Philippines, Western husbands of Filipinas or Filipinos who want to learn their own language in a more systematic way). I also have a post about the Tagalog grammar written in Italian (which I haven't completed yet). In this post I will attempt to introduce the Italian language to Filipinos (or other foreign expatriates) who live here or are planning to come here. Italian is a very tricky language, very very tricky. One of the things that make Italian
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Simuno at Panaguri sa isang Pangungusap

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  "Ang kape ay pampagana". Ano ang simuno dito, at ano ang panaguri? Sa isang pangungusap (o "sentence" sa English) ay mayroon dalawang bahagi: ang SIMUNO at ang PANAGURI. Ano ang SIMUNO at ano ang PANAGURI? SIMUNO Ang isang tao (o grupo ng mga tao) o ang isang bagay na pinag-uusapan. Ito ay ang paksa ng pangungusap. Halimbawa, sa isang pangungusap katulad: "si Maria ay maganda" sino ang pinag-uusapan? Syempre "si Maria". Sa pangungusap "ang bahay ko ay nasa ibabaw ng isang bundok" ano naman ang pinag-uusapan? Syempre "ang bahay". Kaya, sa mga halimbawa na nasa itaas ang tao (si Maria) na pinag-uusapan at ang bagay (ang bahay ko) na pinag-uusapan ay ang paksa o simuno. PANAGURI Ano kaya ang "panaguri"? Ang "panaguri" ay ang bahagi ng pangungusap na "nagsasabi" tungkol sa "simuno". Kaya sa dalawang halimbawa na nasa itaas ang mga panaguri ay: "ay maganda" At "ay nasa ibaba
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Verbal Aspect vs Tense in Tagalog

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" Sumakay ako sa kariton": then I got down to take the picture above. If I said "sumasakay ako" I'd mean that I am still on the kariton There are Filipinos who use the expressions "kapanahunan ng pandiwa", which is the Tagalog term for "tense", and "aspekto ng pandiwa" interchangeably. But are "tense" and "aspect" the same thing? Are there real "tenses" in Tagalog, and in the Philippine languages in general? Even some English books and teachers mix the two and when they are asked about tenses in English they say that the past simple, the past continuous, the past perfect, the present simple, the present continuous and the present perfect are "tenses". In reality in the English language only the past and the present are, strictly speaking, "tenses" in the real sense of the word, as past and present deal with time. The "simple", the "continuous" and the "perfec
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