Tagalog phrase lookup
Type a word in either language. You get the closest phrase, and then the ones that live next to it.
What it searches
Two layers, and the page tells you which one answered.
First, this site's own material: 53 phrases, the 9 marker cells and the 21 pronoun cells. Everything there is something a person has looked at, and it comes with audio.
Then the full Tagalog dictionary: 39,737 entries from Wiktionary, with the pronunciation, every sense, and the inflected forms, so searching a conjugated verb finds its root. It works in both directions, and it will find a word you have misspelled.
Word meanings are a dictionary's job and it does that well. Whole sentences are not: nothing here will invent a translation for a sentence you made up, and a confident wrong translation is worse than no answer, because you cannot tell it is wrong until somebody laughs.
Why it shows you the neighbours
Looking up salamat and getting “thank you” teaches you one word. Getting the reply, the respectful form, and the other phrases carrying po teaches you where the word sits. Each related phrase carries the reason it is related, because a list of loosely-associated words with no stated link is noise.
The relationships are worked out from the data rather than written by hand, so nothing drifts: a phrase added to the site starts appearing beside its neighbours immediately. What you will see is some mix of these.
- What you say back. The reply, where the data records one.
- The same phrase at a different politeness level. Not synonyms: salamat and salamat po are aimed at different people.
- Shares a word. Everything carrying po, or ka, seen together.
- Same row or column of a chart, for a marker or a pronoun.
- Same situation, from the frequency band, which is what the lessons are built from.
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.
- 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.
- Pronunciation and stressWhy buhay and buhay are different words, and how to hear it.
- 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.