Travel in the Philippines
We are a group of enthusiastic students planning a trip to the Philippines. We are now busy preparing for our trip. The group is now in Singapore, but we should reach Manila in several hours. After arriving in Manila, we will go on a sight seeing-trip around the city for four days and then take a ferry to visit the various islands.
English is the second language in the Philippines and one can easily find their way around the main cities with Taglish, which is a mixture of Tagalog and English. In the Philippines, you will find many proficient English speakers.
My friends and I meet often and try to converse with each other using the common Filipino phrases. We practice by quizzing each other and learning from each other. We know simple questions such as "Anong oras na," which means: what time is it, and "Ayos ka lang ba?" which translates as: are you okay? We regularly ask each other for the Tagalog equivalent of an English word. It is good to get a feel for the everyday words before we set off for our holiday, as this will make it so much easier for us to find our way around the islands.
The group has decided to make a stop in one of the tourist destinations we have heard about. We want to see if what we find there will live-up to what our friends have said about it. We have heard that there are beautiful beaches, breathtaking landscapes and an amazing river that you just have to see for yourself. We also want to sharpen our language skills by making friends and talking as much Tagalog with those we meet; since we tend to speak mainly English among ourselves. We want to explore the country, and learn the different ways to ask questions.
The Tagalog language that I and my group speak amongst ourselves was learned mainly from books. On our trip we want to interact with actual speakers of Tagalog and be able to have conversations and ask questions in the Tagalog language.
From what we have learned so far, we know that "kaliwa," means "left" and "kanan" means right. On the other hand, "diretso" would mean go straight ahead and "katapat" means to go in the opposite direction.
We look forward to our trip and spending time on the beautiful beaches. We're hoping to return before the rainy season starts, which is around June. We plan to travel light as we are aware it is going to be very hot and humid. One thing that we do not plan to leave behind are our English to Tagalog dictionaries which will be put to good use.
