Lesson 1. The Tagalog Alphabet

Ang Abakada

The Tagalog alphabet consists of 20 letters.

Aa Bb Kk Dd Ee Gg Hh Ii Ll Mm Nn Ng Oo Pa Rr Ss Tt Uu Ww Yy

The Tagalog alphabet is spoken and written this way.

A Ba Ka Da E Ga Ha I La Ma Na Nga O Pa Ra Sa Ta U Wa Ya

In contrast, the Filipino alphabet consists of 28 letters.

Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Ng Ññ Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz

It is like the English alphabet with the addition of Tagalog Nga and Spanish Ñ.

Vocabulary

Tagalog	Filipino	English	Spanish
Pilipino	Filipino	Filipino	filipino
Ingles	Ingles	English	inglés
kastila	kastila, espanyol	Spanish	español
abakada	alpabeto	alphabet	alfabeto
titik	letra	letter	letra
sulat	sulat	letter, mail	correo
koreyo	koreyo	post office	oficina postal
talasalitaan	bukabularyo	vocabulary	vocabulario

The above table shows an example how both the Tagalog and Filipino vocabulary have been enriched through the Spanish and American era.

In conversational Filipino, you would often hear a mix of Filipino and English words in their sentences. For example, you would often hear Filipinos say "post office" rather than koreyo. For Filipinos with regional accent, you would hear "post office" as "pos opis" for the reason that the Filipino tongue is not used to the sound of "f" and the combination of two sounds or phonemes, such as "st" in "post".