Tagalog pronunciation and stress
Tagalog spelling tells you which sounds to make. It does not tell you where the stress goes, and the stress is sometimes the entire difference between two words.
Why spelling is not enough
Tagalog is written close to how it sounds, which makes it look easy and is genuinely a gift compared to English or French. The catch is that ordinary writing does not mark stress. Dictionaries mark it with an accent so that they can list two words under one spelling. Signs, messages, subtitles and books do not. So a word you can read perfectly is a word you may still say as a different word.
The minimal pairs
8 pairs where one spelling is two words. The transcription is IPA: the mark before a syllable is the stress.
| Spelt | Stress on the first syllable | Stress on the second |
|---|---|---|
| buhay | ˈbuːhajlife | buˈhajalive |
| baka | ˈbakacow | baˈkamaybe |
| pito | ˈpitowhistle | piˈtoseven |
| suka | ˈsukaʔvinegar | suˈkavomit |
| mura | ˈmuɾacheap | muˈɾaan insult / to curse |
| puno | ˈpunoʔfull | puˈnoʔtree |
| gabi | ˈɡabinight | ɡaˈbitaro |
| hapon | ˈhaponafternoon | haˈponJapanese |
Read that table out loud and you will hear how small the difference is and how much it changes. Asking for suka with the stress in the wrong place asks the waiter for vomit rather than vinegar.
What is not built yet, and why
None of these 8 pairs is drilled yet, and the reason is specific: no text-to-speech engine we can reach can be told to put the stress on the first syllable rather than the second. It reads the spelling, and the spelling is the same. So the recordings that would make the drill possible do not exist, and the drill stays shut until two human takes of each word do.
A drill that plays a synthetic voice guessing at the distinction would teach the guess. That is worse than teaching nothing, so the Minimal pairs skill says on its own screen that it is waiting.
The transcriptions above were checked against Wiktionary. Which source each pair was checked against is recorded in the data, so a reviewer has something to check against rather than a claim to take on faith. The rest of the sources are here.
What there is audio for
53 of the 53 phrases have a recording, and so does every cell of both grammar charts: the markers and the pronouns. The listening drills in the app play the phrase with no text on the screen at all, which is the only exercise that trains the thing you will actually have to do.
There are recordings on this page. 52 of them are a synthetic fil-PH voice and 1 is a human recording, credited where it plays. A learner is owed the knowledge that the thing they are copying is not always a person; human recordings replace the synthetic ones from the top of the list down.
Three things worth knowing before you listen
- Stress can be the whole word. See the table above. If you learn a word from writing alone, you have learned half of it.
- The markers are unstressed and they run into the next word. ng is written with two letters and said like nang, and it goes past fast. This is most of why beginners hear Tagalog as one continuous word.
- Listen before you read. Every listening drill in this app plays the audio first and shows the spelling after, on purpose.
The frequency ordering on this site is an informed estimate, not a corpus count. There is no published frequency count for conversational Tagalog, so it prints a rank and never a percentage. When a real count exists, the order changes and this line changes with it.
It teaches Tagalog as spoken around Manila, which is not the same thing as Filipino and is not the whole country. Cebuano and Ilocano are different languages, not accents.
Nothing is drilled until a native speaker has checked it. What has been checked, by whom, and what is still owed is written down on the sources page.
- Phrase lookupSearch a word, see what lives next to it.
- Why Duolingo has no TagalogThe real reason, and what to do instead.
- Basic Tagalog phrasesThe ones you will actually hear, in frequency order, with audio.
- All the phrasesThe whole list this app drills, on one page.
- ang, ng, saNine cells that decide the shape of every Tagalog sentence.
- The pronoun gridTwenty-one cells, three cases, and the two words for we.
- Where this comes fromEvery source, every licence, and who checked the Tagalog.
- Tagalog vs FilipinoDifferent names, mostly the same language. What actually differs.
- Is Tagalog hard?Honest answer: the grammar is strange, the spelling is free.
- Tagalog greetingsHello, good morning, and what you say back.
- Hello in TagalogKumusta, and the formal version, with audio.
- Thank you in TagalogSalamat, salamat po, and the reply.
- Po and opoThe respect particle, and the mistake foreigners make with it.
- Mahal kitaI love you, and the word that also means expensive.
- Tagalog and SpanishThousands of shared words, and not one shared grammar rule.
- Is Tagalog tonal?No. But stress changes meaning, which trips people the same way.
- Tagalog for travelThe jeepney word, the haggling word, and where the bathroom is.
- Learn Tagalog freeWhat is actually free, what is a trial, and where to start.
- Tagalog numbersTwo whole systems, and when each one is used.