In all my years of connections with the Philippines I have never made much progress in learning Tagalog, the national language.
This is because:
- I am too lazy to put in the effort.
- It is too difficult for me, especially the takadakatak tongue-twisters.
- I haven’t needed to. Nearly all Filipinos speak some English and many are completely fluent.
Even when Filipinos speak among themselves in Tagalog, I can often follow the gist of what is being said thanks to their habit of inserting English words in the middle of a Tagalog sentence. This hybrid way of speaking is known as Taglish.
Here is a great example:
Even without knowing that hari means king and reyna means queen we can understand that if we use Goldilocks’ office catering service we can relieve the office party food committee of stress.
Catering for office parties seems like a clever business idea, especially in the Philippines where every office manager knows that the key to maintaining a happy and productive work force is to ensure that everyone is well fed. And with the Philippines having one of the world’s longest Christmas seasons there must be plenty of parties to cater for.