Tagalog Tip of the Week

Common Greetings:

Magandang Umaga

Magandang Hapon

Magandang Gabi

Exact translation: 

Beautiful morning.

Beautiful afternoon.

Beautiful evening.

Loose Translation

Good morning.

Good afternoon.

Good evening.

Pronunciation:

Tagalog is strictly phonetical, so letters are always pronounced the same.  Consonants are pronounced essentially the same as they are in english.  In the tagalog alphabet, "ng" is its own character and even it's own stand alone word.  It's pronunciation is similar to the english pronunciation but the g is pronounced as a hard g in the back of your mouth like you would say rang, not swimming. Vowels are pronounced as follows:

a: as in mama

e: as in tray  

i: as in tree

o: as in toe

u: as in boot

ay: as in try

Enjoy!