Learning my fiancee 's culture

[evli1966 88]

I'm actually surprised by ######'s post because I know that many employers seek out Filipinos for their dedication to their work. Last year, a local company in our city hired a Pinay and they were very happy with her work performance that they decided to hire another Pinay. With two Pinays already under their payroll, this same company added another position last week. I know this sounds discriminatory but the American boss specifically said he wanted Pinay workers.

And I know this for sure because the last Pinay hired was me

Just by my visits and friends I have here I believe this to be true

Speaking in short cut manner is something that has been a part of pinoy culture.

My husband and I have had few funny moments when I asks him, "have you seen my cell charger?" and whenever I say "I'm "LOW-BATT"

and he would usually correct me for saying it properly to " My battery is low"

So, to fellows who are learning your S.O's culture.. its just natural if we say things in crooked, So its something that the spouse has to learn and adjust.

[James & Nath 0]

Yes, it's very amusing...

Sometimes my fiancee, when I as her a question, will say something like "uh-uh"... Which sounds exactly like the slang we use here in US for no which is "huh-uh". The only problem is, when she says "uh-uh" it actually means "yes" (kind of like "oh-oh") So, that was very confusing for me until I got used to it.

Also, someone mentioned how their fiancee always gets her "he"s and "she"s mixed up... Yes, my fiancee does the same. It's cute, but can sometimes be very confusing.

Anyway, as I get more accustomed to her speech - I've learned better how to understand her - and I love to hear her talk.

[Atencio 43]

Yes, it's very amusing...

Sometimes my fiancee, when I as her a question, will say something like "uh-uh"... Which sounds exactly like the slang we use here in US for no which is "huh-uh". The only problem is, when she says "uh-uh" it actually means "yes" (kind of like "oh-oh") So, that was very confusing for me until I got used to it.

Yes! I think I mentioned the same thing in this or another thread. My wife does the exact thing and it is so confusing.

[YodaPagoda 0]

I still have a lot to learn in terms of pronunciation (not pronOUnciation) but it's not easy.

This reminds me of a conversation I had with my fiancee about how she wants me to be "comfortable." Now ordinarily, I might be wrong here, but most Americans butcher this word and say what amounts to "comf-tor-bull" and I swear, the first time she said "comfortable" (it sounded like "com-for-ta-bull") i thought she was talking about me being in a "convertable" car.

[David & Kezia 25]

This reminds me of a conversation I had with my fiancee about how she wants me to be "comfortable." Now ordinarily, I might be wrong here, but most Americans butcher this word and say what amounts to "comf-tor-bull" and I swear, the first time she said "comfortable" (it sounded like "com-for-ta-bull") i thought she was talking about me being in a "convertable" car.

Hah! This is the same word that David is always saying that I'm pronouncing wrong, but I'm actually pronouncing very right and was the original way it was supposed to be pronounced before Americans started pronouncing it with a shortcut and made it so common that it actually made it to the dictionary as now acceptable.

Check out http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/comfortable for the details and the audio. The original syllabication is "com·fort·able" and should be pronounced as "ˈkəm(p)-fə®-tə-bəl", although now it's mostly shortened to "ˈkəm(p)-tə®-bəl" and " ˈkəm-fə®-bəl".

And believe it or not, most of the educated Filipinos spell better and have better grammar than Americans, even the educated ones.

[David & Kezia 25]

Hah! This is the same word that David is always saying that I'm pronouncing wrong, but I'm actually pronouncing very right and was the original way it was supposed to be pronounced before Americans started pronouncing it with a shortcut and made it so common that it actually made it to the dictionary as now acceptable.

Check out http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/comfortable for the details and the audio. The original syllabication is "com·fort·able" and should be pronounced as "ˈkəm(p)-fə®-tə-bəl", although now it's mostly shortened to "ˈkəm(p)-tə®-bəl" and " ˈkəm-fə®-bəl".

And believe it or not, most of the educated Filipinos spell better and have better grammar than Americans, even the educated ones.

the pronunciation guide wouldn't publish right, and turns into flowers :-( please just check the M-W website for the actual details

[chaice 0]

She knows he vs she but she keeps calling her bro 'she ' and her sister 'he'. I just alert her with a smile..and she goes *oopppss*.

hahaha' that's the same problem with me.. i really get confused with the he and she on talking.. my husband used to repeat it with a question like He?? when he knows i'm talking about she. hehe' maybe because in tagalog we don't have he or she. it goes generally with gender' we just say the name of the person then we'll know if it's a she or he.

[Kevin- 13]

This thread is great. I hope people reach this post, because I bet it will be thought quite intriguing.

As has been mentioned, the pronouns are significantly different between Cebuano/Tagalog and English, which leads to a lot of misunderstandings. "I was talking to my brother, and she said...." Especially when there are multiple persons being discussed.

In English, we are not taught to become very good at keeping track of the sex of every person being talked about, we actually learn it from being immersed in the language from the time we're born. It even can become awkward to speak or write about a person when their sex is not known (or needs to be kept unknown for whatever reason). Filipinos are not accustomed to this. Even though they are taught English from a young age, they are not fully immersed in it such that they become accustomed to the need to track the sex of each person in every word they use.

Here's the interesting part.

There are a few languages in the world which we English speakers can look at and gain a respect for this type of difference. I'm talking about languages which don't use left, right, forward, backward. They instead always use North, South, East, West. This causes them to become intimately aware of their geographical orientation to such a high degree, that it can easily seem supernatural.

People who speak these languages natively are able to be taken into dark caves while blindfolded, spun around repeatedly, and then still point to north accurately. If they point at their chest, they are rarely, if ever, referring to themselves, instead they are pointing in whichever direction happens to be "behind" them.

When they recall a story, they recall the directions just as easily as the names of the people involved. "I ran out the door and turned south". If they use hand gestures to help visualize the story, they would be pointing in the original N S E W directions, regardless of which way they're facing when they tell the story. In contrast, most other people would use left and right hands, or point forward and backward to gesture directions.

People of these cultures also see the world very differently. For example, take two hotel rooms across a hall from each other. The two rooms are identical from a left-right-front-back perspective. One of these folks would see these rooms as being totally different, which from an absolute-geographical-direction point of view, they are.

There's a particular term used to describe these languages, and I'm not sure if I remembered it right. This is not a very well known bit of information, so it's hard to search on Google without that term.

Anyhow, you can see possibly by this example how hard it can be for a person to learn he, she, him, her, if not immersed in it from the earliest age. It's definitely not just Filipinos who have trouble with it. It affects anyone who has not grown up speaking a language which "tracks" the sex of every person being communicated about. It's definitely easier for a person to learn he-she-him-her, than for a person of a non-geographical language to learn to be so intuitively aware of their directional heading at all times

[David & Kezia 25]

Guys,

The confusion in the pronouns more to the fact that our pronouns doesn't differentiate between sexes. We use "siya", "kaniya", "kanila", etc., and the same goes for the other languages in the Philippines. There are many other examples of other pronouns like that that are sexless. Another one is sibling which is "kapatid", but if you have to mean a brother you have to say "kapatid na lalaki" and if it's a sister it's a "kapatid na babae". There's also no word for wife or husband, just the general term for spouse. We get around it by calling the wife the "Mrs." and the husband the "Mr.".

-Kezia

[Atencio 43]

There's also no word for wife or husband, just the general term for spouse. We get around it by calling the wife the "Mrs." and the husband the "Mr.".

-Kezia

In Cebuano wife is asawa and husband is bana.

[Kevin- 13]

I hope some people find the geographical language bit interesting, heheh. The underlying point is that language shapes how we think, and sometimes the differences in languages lead to significant differences which are sometimes hard to overcome when learning a significantly different language.

I also get confused when Bel makes pronoun mistakes, when there's multiple people involved. It makes me wonder, in those circumstances is it typical that the sexless pronoun would be used in the Cebuano/Tagalog version of the conversation? If the conversation is about two people, and you say [pronoun] did something, how do you know who's being spoken about? Obviously this exists in English as well, when there's more than one of a sex included in the topic, but it happens much less, and generally we resort to using names. It's a bit difficult to explain what I mean exactly.

Other fun things:

Sometimes the way Bel says "Yes" and "No" are actually so close that I have to ask her to fully pronounce either YES or NO. She often gets frustrated, heheheh. It will be me trying to distinguish between "yeah" and a "nyeah" with a very weak N sound. There's been plenty of times where I think she said the opposite of what she actually said, so I have to ask now, heheh.

There's also been times where her family tries to talk to me, and their pronunciation is so unusual that I have to ask them to repeat several times. Once her brother was trying to mention her purse, saying shoulder bag. It really sounded like a single 5 syllable word, instead of 2+1. "shou L de R bag"

What's funny is many people there seem to have the opinion that American's use and pronunciation of English is incorrect by default. Meaning, whenever they can't understand us, we're the ones saying it wrong. And whenever we can't understand them, we're not be able to understand proper English. I've even had to convince Bel, through consistently clean and proper use of English, that we are generally the ones who have it right. With a few exceptions in certain lazy word pronunciations.

[Zen Den 18]

Yes, it's very amusing...

Sometimes my fiancee, when I as her a question, will say something like "uh-uh"... Which sounds exactly like the slang we use here in US for no which is "huh-uh". The only problem is, when she says "uh-uh" it actually means "yes" (kind of like "oh-oh") So, that was very confusing for me until I got used to it.

Also, someone mentioned how their fiancee always gets her "he"s and "she"s mixed up... Yes, my fiancee does the same. It's cute, but can sometimes be very confusing.

Anyway, as I get more accustomed to her speech - I've learned better how to understand her - and I love to hear her talk.

you're correct, uh-uh is actually "Oo", tagalog for "yes" which is pronounced "o-o" like in "always" not like in "oh" =)

[tallcoolone 102]

Brazil wax is not for the sissy hence the last name "landing strip"

edited to add: With apologies to TCO for making fun of his surname.

I would think you should apologize for making vieled threats to me

[Tahoma 2,292]

So what if you know my last name? Big Deal.

I would think you should apologize for making vieled threats to me

Hmmm...Didn't you say it was no big deal?

[tallcoolone 102]

Hmmm...Didn't you say it was no big deal?

If you would of seen the PM I received a few months ago from PI Wife, It is a violation of the TOS of this site.

I don't like to be harrassed or threats made to me