Is Tagalog Hard To Learn? (Helpful Content!)

For English speakers, Tagalog is relatively difficult to learn. The two languages are based on fundamentally different grammatical conventions. Vocabulary is also vastly different. That said, pronunciation is relatively straightforward, as well as the writing system, so it’s not all bad. But Tagalog is fundamentally very different to English, making it hard to learn.

Learning any new language is a challenge.

We never think about the conditions under which we learned our native languages because it was just a natural part of our development and childhood.

Tagalog, relative to other languages, is an even greater challenge still for English speakers.

Let’s find out more.

How long does it take to learn Tagalog?

The simple answer is that it depends on the speaker.

Some, naturally, will pick up the language quicker than others.

However, we can certainly look at a general, ball-park average for how long it will take to learn Tagalog.

It’s also worth mentioning, first, that many would argue the process of learning a language is never really over.

For our purposes, we can simplify the whole process into two essential stages.

You’ve got the initial study period first.

In general, linguists and tutors agree that in order to get a working grasp of Tagalog, to the point that you could conduct yourself in the language and have relatively complex conversations, would involve about 1100 hours of study.

This is around 44 weeks of full-time studying.

While this in itself might not seem like an awfully long time in the grand scheme of things, it is a lot of time to spend studying a single thing.

This is going to be the hard part.

You’ll have to learn the rules of grammar and how to form proper, complete sentences, as well as have a varied enough vocabulary to speak and listen with aptitude.

Once you’ve finished this initial period of study, though, the process of learning is far from complete.

Ideally, at this point, you would immerse yourself fully in the language, living in the country or among Tagalog speakers if at all possible.

After a couple of years of this, you should be at a point of comfort in speaking, listening and reading in Tagalog.

Though there’s always more to learn, you might consider this the end-point. In other words, you are perhaps looking at a total of three years.

But exactly what language is Tagalog?

Is it called Tagalog or Filipino?

There is a bit of confusion around whether Tagalog and Filipino are different languages or the same.

Tagalog is the Austronesian language spoken by the ethnic Tagalog people—currently comprising around a quarter of the Filipino population.

Filipino is the standardized form of Tagalog, meaning they are essentially the same language.

Filipino is just a slightly more monitored form of Tagalog.

In the Philippines, Tagalog or Filipino is the second most spoken language after English.

So, in other words, Tagalog is the indigenous language of the Philippines.

There is really no functional difference between Tagalog and Filipino.

There are, of course, regional variations and dialects of Tagalog which would not quite line up exactly with the standardized Filipino, but they are still the same language.

How difficult is Tagalog to learn for an English speaker?

So, just how difficult is Tagalog for English speakers?

Well, the simple answer is that it certainly is quite difficult.

Luckily, the U.S. government provides the FSI scale for ranking the relative ease of languages for English speakers to learn.

This category ranks languages from I-V, with category I languages being the easiest to learn.

Tagalog is ranked in category IV on that scale, meaning it is among the second most difficult language group for English speakers to learn.

This is, among other things, because of the grammatical difference between English and Tagalog and the vocabulary.

However, pronunciation, as I said, is relatively simple for an English speaker.

The FSI scale is certainly a useful metric to get a general idea of the difficulty of a given language, but it doesn’t tell the whole story.

There are aspects of Tagalog that are easier to learn than languages that are ranked lower on the scale, and vice versa.

Learning languages is a complex thing, and it’s hard to apply hard and fast rules like this to any of them—but Tagalog is difficult by any measure.

Is Tagalog harder than Spanish?

Yes, the short answer is that Tagalog definitely is harder to learn than Spanish.

Spanish and English are much more closely related, and indeed Spanish is considered one of the easiest languages for English speakers to learn.

They are both Indo-European languages, and Tagalog is vastly more distantly related to English than Spanish.

The FSI scale ranks Spanish as a category I language—so you can see that those with the expertise would consider it many times easier to learn Spanish than Tagalog.

However, the fact remains that there are aspects of Tagalog that some may find easier than Spanish.

It often depends a great deal on the person, but few would argue Spanish is outright harder than Tagalog.

Tagalog is an immensely rewarding language to learn, then, but you’ve got to prepare yourself for the challenge ahead.

As I’ve stressed, learning any second language is going to be difficult—indeed, even though you don’t remember it, learning your first language was very difficult, too!

But Tagalog is a lot more difficult than many other languages to learn for English speakers, however much easier one individual may happen to find it.

More in Learning Languages

• Is Afrikaans Hard To Learn? (Helpful Content!)
• Is Arabic Hard To Learn? (Helpful Content!)
• Is Bulgarian Hard To Learn? (Revealed!)
• Is Chinese Hard To Learn? (Answered!)
• Is Croatian Hard To Learn? (Helpful Content!)
• Is Danish Hard To Learn? (Helpful Content!)
• Is Dutch Hard To Learn? (Answered!)
• Is English Hard To Learn? (Answered!)
• Is Estonian Hard To Learn? (Helpful Content!)
• Is French Hard To Learn? (Helpful Content)
• Is German Hard To Learn? (Helpful Content)
• Is Hindi Hard To Learn? (Answered!)
• Is Italian Hard To Learn? (Helpful Content!)
• Is Japanese Hard To Learn? (Explained!)
• Is Korean Hard To Learn? (Explained!)
• Is Latin Hard To Learn? (Helpful Content!)
• Is Latvian Hard To Learn? (Answered!)
• Is Norwegian Hard To Learn? (Helpful Content!)
• Is Portuguese Hard To Learn? (Find Out!)
• Is Russian Hard To Learn? (Answered!)
• Is Spanish Hard To Learn? (Helpful Content!)
• Is Swedish Hard To Learn? (Helpful Content!)
• Is Tagalog Hard To Learn? (Helpful Content!)
• Is Welsh Hard To Learn? (Helpful Content!)