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This is the best learning material I have found for any language

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Author Photo by: Silverfoxdr
Jun 01 2019, 12:00am CST ~ 4 years ago. 
This is the best learning material I have found for any language. It allows one to make sense of constructions and have guidance as to prioritizing vocabulary, but still allows one to deviate from prescribed vocabulary for one's own purposes.
 
Now if only there were similar resource for my Filipino friends learning English. I can help those who have a good basic understanding (although getting Filipinos to use the right verb tense appears nearly hopeless) but not those who are not yet comfortable with a conversation much beyond greetings, please and thank you, etc.
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Author Photo FilipinoChatAdmin Badge: AdminBadge: SupporterBadge: Serious SupporterBadge: VIP Supporter
Jun 01 2019, 12:00am CST ~ 4 years ago. 
although getting Filipinos to use the right verb tense appears nearly hopeless
 
@Silverfoxdr
Hmm...people around the world pretty much agree that English is a tough language to learn...but, I have a number of Filipino friends who speak English really well, with only minor glitches here or there. I think anyone who prioritizes their English studies can get tenses down fine. It just depends on how much people prioritize perfecting a foreign language (or not). Thankfully, there are a LOT of English language resources out there...I would say there’s a lot more resources out there for Filipino speakers to learn English than vice versa.
 
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Author Photo Silverfoxdr
Jun 01 2019, 12:00am CST ~ 4 years ago. 
@FilipinoChatAdmin I have always assumed there are more learning materials for a Tagalog speaker to learn English than for an English speaker learning Tagalog (and forget about Cebuano.) But I have to wonder how good they are. I have considered taking a course in teaching English as a second language.
 
The main thing I have learned from my studies of Tagalog so far is how to correct for the common errors Tagalog speakers make in their English. (e.g. "in" being used as a "translation" of "sa",.confusing "he" and "she." Chief among those is to never rely on the speaker's choice of verb tense to tell you when something happened or will happen.) I probably deal with less well educated Filipinos. Many of these I suspect believe they speak good English. But they have mostly learned to substitute Tagalog words with English "translations." They "speak English" well among themselves, but are really speaking Tagalog in code.
 
Reminds me of a situation when I was working as a physician at a state mental hospital when a Cebuano speaking patient was admitted, who declined a translator. Although she definitely had serious mental illness (paranoid delusions and borderline personality) she was not out of touch with reality or having flight of ideas the way the intake psychiatrists and counsellors believed from her mixing up of he/she, verb tenses, wrong word order (if "a" means
"ng" and "the" means "ang" it does not matter if the object comes before the verb and the subject after, or any other order, right?) I straightened the other providers out on this, but the patient never accepted having a translator because she believed she spoke good English -- whether because of pride, lack of recognition of her limits, or part of her delusions remained unclear.
 
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Author Photo FilipinoChatAdmin Badge: AdminBadge: SupporterBadge: Serious SupporterBadge: VIP Supporter
Jun 01 2019, 12:00am CST ~ 4 years ago. 
Among Asians generally, Filipinos DO speak English pretty darn well, and so they have reason to have some pride in that skill...compare the average Filipino to the average Japanese or Chinese or Korean person, for example... A lot of Koreans come to the Philippines for English language classes, as you might know, because it's cheaper and the teachers are significantly better than most Korean English teachers.
 
There's also a thing that happens with everyone who uses a language that is not their own, where learning the new language is great up to the point that you can pretty much communicate anything you want to communicate (albeit with periodic grammatical errors)...past that point, it's less exciting to get to perfect or native-level grammar fluency because the "return on investment" just isn't there. It takes a LOT of work to get from "able to communicate about most things" to "near-perfect fluency," and the payoff is not as big as reaching the prior level...
 
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Author Photo Silverfoxdr
Jun 01 2019, 12:00am CST ~ 4 years ago. 
I suspect most of the Filipinos I deal with are below what you wold consider average, Nonetheless, one of the deterrents to me leaning Tagalog (besides dissatisfaction with learning materials) is that almost all Filipinos are starting out so far ahead of me in their English compared to My Tagalog that it is nearly pointless.
 
One problem in any foreign language is that really critical understanding requires very high level language skills. It is one thing to ask about dinner, quite another to understand someone's opinions on religion, economics, politics etc.
 
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