Hello! My name is haggis718. I am from United Kingdom and I am a

@haggis718 be sure to learn the word "guwapa.". ;-)

@Diegocorry what does that mean?

@haggis718 It's a borrowed word from the Spanish "guapo (masc.)/guapa (fem.)" that means "handsome/beautiful". If your girlfriend is from the southern part of the county, i.e., the Visayas or Mindanao, she should be quite familiar with the term. However, the term is not used by those from Luzon or those whose native language is Tagalog. We use the Filipino word "maganda" instead for women and "guwapo" for men. "Maganda" applies to women by default, we can also say "magandang lalaki" to mean a handsome man. To keep it short though, we just use "guwapo".

@Tagamanila my girlfriend is from tuagig manila

@haggis718 Maybe you meant "Taguig"? It is pronounced as Tah-gih-eeg. Since she's in Manila, it would be better to use "maganda". "Maganda ka" means "you are beautiful". Pronounce "maganda ka" straight like it's a 4-syllable word with stress on the last syllable "ka" (muh-gun-dah-KA). 😁

@Tagamanila Interesting, I was not aware that Tagalog speakers do not use "guwapa." It seems odd that they would retain the masculine version but not the feminine.

@Diegocorry Since we were under Spain till the late part of the 19th century, "guapa" must have been a very common word in the country. So, I have no idea as to when the shift to "maganda" in Tagalog came about. Now, if someone here in Manila uses "guwapa" it's almost sure that he's not a native Tagalog speaker. And if you'd describe a man here as just "maganda" and not "magandang lalaki", it would suggest that you're hinting he's gay.