Basic Tagalog for Foreigners and Non-Tagalogs: (MP3 Audio CD Included) (Tuttle Language Library) Paperback – Import, 15 November 2007

I'm so happy that I found this book .It's a great book for beginners in Tagalog.Very well writtenLots of examples.This comes with a CD,which is an add-on! I have been using YouTube but was having a feeling that I am not going in the right direction. This book is for people like me who don't want to waste time searching for resources here and there.You get everything at one stop with the purchase of this book.So happy !!

Most books with titles like the title of this one turn out to be Tagalog phrase books, i.e., not completely useless, but no way to learn a language as different from English as Tagalog is. This is not a phrase book. It actually starts with sample sentences, then breaks them down and describes different sentence structures, even going so far as to indicate the significance of each word or particle in the sentences. Hallelujah. Within the first 40 pages the student will be shown how to construct a sentence two different ways, what particles, i.e., pronouns, prepositions and markers, to place where, and why to place them there. I haven't got through the whole thing yet, but I've already found out why and how adjectives change spelling in mid-word under certain circumstances, and I look forward to finding out how verbs conjugate the same non-Indo-European way. If you've found Rosetta Stone frustrating (infuriating?) because of its lack of any grammar or translation support, this book should help solve the problem. The Rosetta Stone "immersion" model has its place, I suppose, in that someone who doesn't speak Tagalog but who found themselves plunked down in Manila for 20 years and forced to as it were Root Hog or Die linguistically without any backup materials...would, eventually, learn the language. Right. I don't have 20 years. I have maybe an hour or so per day, in the United States, to learn this language. I've paid for RS, so I'll use it for familiarization and drill, but this book, "Basic Tagalog", is, I think, what's going to enable me to speak, read, write, and understand Tagalog.

great

fantastic teaching aidbe sure to use the disc that comes with it for proper pronunciation

This is by far the best overall book I've seen for learning Tagalog. This is probably the best thing for learning Tagalog next to Rosetta Stone. The 40 plus lessons covers the basics of learning Tagalog including grammar, not just memorizing expressions. After the lessons, there are appendices full of exercises and other references to further enhance your skills with Tagalog. Included in such appendices are Tagalog idioms and samples of everyday conversations a person may have. There's also a glossary of words in both languages for quick reference. But what really makes this book stand out for me is the included audio CD. All of the chapters are narrated on the audio CD, unlike some other books which may only have the foreign language word pronounced. I have found this feature especially useful for listening while traveling or doing whatever. It's easy to follow along as the narrator speaks to actually understand the lesson and then hear a native Tagalog speaker pronounce the Tagalog words. Great buy for anyone who is just starting to learn Tagalog or wants a thorough overview of the language. I would recommend this book to be followed up by "Modern Tagalog Grammar" by Teresa Ramos. This book is not for beginners but gets much deeper into Tagalog grammar and should help you to become truly fluent in this difficult language to learn.