I am concerned about the accuracy of the vocabulary in this course. Of
minor concern is the lack of accent marks, which would help tremendously
in learning pronunciation.
My greatest problem lies with definitions. “Kuha” is defined as “To get,
to obtain”. But in Basic Tagalog, Kuha is a noun, meaning “getting”.
Google Translate agrees with that. To get is I think “makuha” or
"magkuha". There were many more examples all in a row similar to that,
the verb in English linked to the noun in Tagalog. This makes me wonder
if I’m wasting my time doing the Foundation course, worse if you
consider I would be learning INCORRECT information. There was one word I
wish I had written down, for which the audio pronounced a leading
syllable not included in the written word, and I believe the audio was
correct, and the written word was not.
Please verify the vocabulary. Check ALL the vocabulary. I will not continue with Foundation Tagalog until I hear back from you.
I used Foundation Tagalog when I was starting with the language a couple of years ago and I agree it’s a mess and getting worse. The course creator seems to be getting more confused as he learns, not less. For a start, the number spellings he uses are nice, logical, consistent and wrong. There used to be a course forum where you could post errata but Memrise did away with that useful facility.
I can only suggest you do as I did - check each word as you learn and use the Ignore button when in doubt.
While I can’t guarantee 100% accuracy in my own Tagalog courses (I’m a learner, too) I do check everything before posting it and never rely on hunches.
Here are a couple of basic Tagalog courses I’ve found pretty sound:
Thank you. I notice there are various authors, and get the feeling that
people are invited to write lessons, without ensuring they know what
they are doing.
Anyone can create a course in Memrise and the quality varies. Basically we’re all learners here, and sometimes this means the blind leading the blind. I’ve taught English as a foreign language for decades and written textbooks for schools, but some of these guys haven’t got a clue about how to teach or learn a language.
Among the highly rated Memrise courses in Tagalog, I recommend you steer clear of Sentence Method:Tagaolog [sic], which is an absolute disgrace. The courses authored by diazfamily19 represent an honest effort, and they’re worth trying after you’ve mastered the basic vocabulary.
makuha is translated as being ABLE to get something.
magkuha is translated as the verb “take”
All three are similar but not the same.
Regarding accent marks, it was my finding that these are not really used in the language or the culture. Source? My wife’s family. This course was meant as merely a foundation upon which to practice in real life the words and meanings found in every day conversation. Its not academic by any means.
I agree. I had no clue how to put together a course, let alone teach anyone the content.
I think anyone feeling Memrise is an authoritative source on any topic should take things with a grain of salt.
I tried to keep things as simple as possible, and go with a 1-to-1 relationship with translations. The problem with filipino language is there is a lot of overlap and confusion about the “correct” word since:
a.) HEAVY Spanish influence.
b.) Multiple dialects.
c.) Poor understanding of their own language since even people speaking the same dialect can have multiple variations on the same word depending on context.
I am open to suggestions. Is there a method I can use to pry better understanding from the culture? Some syntactic or academic technique to follow to bring about correct translations?
Anyone have good sources on translating languages properly?
I’m interested in learning how to translate properly if my efforts have proven insufficient.
Kuha is and isn’t a verb. It’s a verb stem to which various prefixes, suffixes, infixes and circumfixes - I’m going to call these ‘fixes’ - may be added to make a more recognizable verb.
It’s a problem with Foundation Tagalog is that some of the verbs are in stem form and others have ‘fixes’ attached. This is thoroughly confusing, especially for beginners.
In Level 2, to take an example, the following verbs are in root form: kuha, sabi, kita, tingin, antay. The following verbs are not in root form: gumawa, humanap, magmadali.
There is no system to how verbs are presented and this must be very confusing for the beginners the course is intended for. If these are not corrected, I suggest learners should use the ignore button for these verbs.
