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Although not Asian myself, I've lived and worked amongst Asians and Filipinos for 30 years. IMHO, possibly because it's infused with English and Spanish, Tagalog seems to lack the fluid syncopation one hears in the romantic languages. The English and Spanish infusions make it sound non continuous to non native ears. Tagalog is a language where you can place words such as pulis (police) and libro (book) in the same sentence. To my ears, that tends to arrest a bit of fluidity.
My favourite Asian language is Nihongo; i.e., the Japanese language.
That being stated, regardless of how Tagalog sounds, never in my life have I met a more polite and hospitable people who will go out of their way to ensure you feel welcomed when visiting their homes. For that I am eternally greatful.
Although not Asian myself, I've lived and worked amongst Asians and Filipinos for 30 years. IMHO, possibly because it's infused with English and Spanish, Tagalog seems to lack the fluid syncopation one hears in the romantic languages. The English and Spanish infusions make it sound non continuous to non native ears. Tagalog is a language where you can place words such as pulis (police) and libro (book) in the same sentence. To my ears, that tends to arrest a bit of fluidity.
My favourite Asian language is Nihongo; i.e., the Japanese language.
That being stated, regardless of how Tagalog sounds, never in my life have I met a more polite and hospitable people who will go out of their way to ensure you feel welcomed when visiting their homes. For that I am eternally greatful.
I agree that the English loanwords make it sounds non-continuous. I hate hearing English in Tagalog. However, I think the Spanish loanwords sound natural within Tagalog. Also, I think Tagalog sounds a lot more fluid than other Asian languages like Vietnamese. It's very choppy because it's monosyllabic. Tagalog sounds very fluid in comparison.
Japanese isn't monosyllabic, but it sounds very monotone to me, which makes it not as pleasant IMO
When my wife and her girl friends get together for "chismis" it sounds like white noise.
After 22 years of marriage I can tune it out.
But, I can always tell when they start talking about me.
Just kidding. After living with Filipinos for so long I can usually understand the subject of the conversation.
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