Learn how to talk about your ethnicity using the verb meaning "to be"
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Becky: Hi everyone, Becky here, and welcome back to FilipinoPod101.com. This is Basic Bootcamp Lesson 2 - Talking Nationality in Filipino. This is the second lesson in a five-part series that will help you ease your way into Filipino. |
| Betsey: Kamusta! I’m Betsey. In this lesson, you’ll learn how to express your nationality in Filipino. |
| Becky: In the last lesson we explained how to introduce yourself. In this lesson we will learn how to talk about your nationality too. |
| Betsey: The conversation takes place at a party. It’s between Grace and Maria, who are strangers. They will be using formal Filipino. |
| Becky: Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Betsey: Once you know how to introduce yourself, it’s natural to also talk about where you’re from. It is a good way to start a conversation! |
| Becky: Definitely, and also when you are travelling abroad, a lot of the time, people will ask you about your nationality. And if you know how to answer, you are one step closer to a nice chat with your new Filipino friends. |
| Betsey: Yeah, and these days, the Philippines have become a very popular tourist destination for people around the world. More and more tourists are visiting the country every year. |
| Becky: And of course, people in the Philippines are interested in foreign cultures as well. |
| Betsey: Yes, that’s right. That’s why they will probably ask a lot of questions about your nationality and cultural background. If you plan to visit the Philippines soon, be ready for that. |
| Becky: Okay, now on to the vocab. |
| Becky: Let's take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| The first word we shall see is: |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Becky: Let's have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Betsey: As you can hear in the dialog we have two nationalities, Pilipino and Amerikana. |
| Becky: Although Filipino is a gender-neutral language, because of the Spanish influence, Filipino uses gender identification when talking about nationalities and occupations. These are the only exceptions. |
| Betsey: That’s right, so usually for the identification of male gender, we have an “o” vowel as the last syllable and for female gender, we have an “a” vowel. |
| Becky: In our example, ‘Amerikana’ is a female American and ‘Amerikano’ would be a male. So ‘Pilipino’ is a male Filipino because it ends with ‘o’ and ‘Pilipina’ would be a female, because it ends with ‘a’ |
| Betsey: Yes, so that’s a good tip for knowing how to figure out the gender of certain Filipino words. |
| Becky: Definitely! Okay, now onto the grammar. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Becky: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to talk about your nationality in Filipino. |
| Betsey: In the dialogue we used both the “verb first” rule, and the active voice rule. |
| Becky: And in this section, we’re going to show you how to use these two constructions in daily conversation. |
| Betsey: That’s right. For saying “I am Betsey” for example, we can use the active voice, “Ako ay si Betsey.” |
| Becky: And you can also use the same active voice for stating your nationality. For example, you can say “I am American” in Filipino in two different ways. |
| Betsey: “Ako ay Amerikana” and “Amerikana ako”. As you can hear, when you say your name in Filipino using the active voice, the word “si” is in the sentence, but it’s not there if you are talking about your nationality. |
| Becky: This is because “si” is only used for a person’s name, and not for nationalities. |
| Betsey: Okay. So we have “Ako ay si Betsey” to mean ‘I am Betsey’ and “Ako ay Amerikana” to mean ‘I’m American.’ |
| Becky: So now, let's give some more examples for other nationalities. We’ll use the active voice so you can understand the formal way of introducing yourself in Filipino. |
| Betsey: Ako ay Russo. (slowly) Ako ay Russo. |
| Becky: It means “I am Russian.” Then how do you say ‘I’m British.’? |
| Betsey: Ako ay Briton. (slowly) Ako ay Briton. |
| Becky: This means “I am British.” |
| Betsey: Let’s have another one. “Ang nobya ko ay Pranses.” |
| Becky: This can be literally translated as “Girlfriend of mine is French”. |
| Betsey: In this sentence, “Nobya” is for girlfriend. So the sentence means “My girlfriend is French.” |
| Becky: And how would you say “My boyfriend is Italian?” |
| Betsey: “Ang nobyo ko ay Italiano.” This literally means “(The) boyfriend my is Italian.” Here, “nobyo” is for “boyfriend” and you can see how we identify the genders here. Ok. One more time. “Ang nobyo ko ay Italiano.” |
| Becky: So it means “My boyfriend is Italian.” |
| Betsey: As you may notice, the Filipino spelling of nationalities are very similar to English, so it’s easy to remember them. |
| Becky: Listen to the names of other nationalities in Filipino and try to guess what they could be in English. It will be fun! |
Outro |
| Becky: Okay, that’s it for this lesson. Make sure you check the lesson notes, and See you next time. |
| Betsey: Thanks for listening. Paalam! |
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