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Joe the "Amerikano" in the Philippines

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  Officers carefully screening everyone entering a shopping mall...except Joe ang Amerikano A "Joe Nobody" in his country becomes "Joe Somebody" in the Philippines I remember walking down the streets of my wife's barangay alone and everyone would greet me with the expression "hey Joe". Filipinos automatically assume that if you are a Westerner your name is "Joe" and that you are wealthy and "Amerikano" . I also remember all Filipinos and their bags being thoroughly screened at the entrance of each shopping mall I went to. However the officers would just greet me and smile, as you can see in the picture above (that was at the SM in Rosales, Pangasinan), and say to me "welcome Sir". And there is nothing like hearing a Filipino call you "Sir" wherever you go, especially when you come from a country where your neighbor treats you like nothing. Indeed, the Philippines is the place where a Joe Nobody becomes Joe Somebo
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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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