Learn Tagalog online!
Good Friday 2025 is on April 18
Kwaresma is Lent. It is the season when Filipinos remember Christ’s passion (his suffering and death) and resurrection. It starts on Ash Wednesday, forty days before Easter Sunday. On this day, you will see Catholic Filipinos returning from church with ash smudged on their foreheads in the shape of a cross. If you don’t have the mark, you will be asked if you have attended Mass. Continue reading “Holy Week in the Philippines”
pamilya
family
pagtitiwala sa Panginoon
trust in God
pagiging magalang
being respectful, especially to older people
pagtitiis
perseverance, forbearance
The Tagalog word for ‘courtship’ is panliligaw.
A common statement by Filipino men said to Filipinas:
Gusto kitang ligawan.
I’d like to court you.
This is to ask for permission to woo the woman. If she says no, then she is definitely not interested. If she says anything that is not a no, you have the go-ahead to try your hand at winning her affection. Continue reading “Dating & Courtship in the Philippines”
Barbie wearing a traditional “Maria Clara” dress
The official national costume of Filipino men is the barong tagalog.
The upper garment of the boy in the picture is a barong. It is worn over a Chinese collarless shirt called camisa de Chino. The boy is also wearing the traditional wide-brimmed hat salakot, which is usually made of rattan or reeds.
Tinikling involves two people hitting bamboo poles on the ground and against each other in coordination with one or more dancers who step over and in between the poles in a dance. It originated in Leyte among the Visayan islands in central Philippines as an imitation of the tikling bird.
Once taught simply as a folk dance from the Philippines, it has recently become popular in the sports curricula of elementary schools as it involves skills similar to jumping rope. It’s now a new, fun form of aerobic exercise that also improves spatial awareness, rhythm, foot and leg speed, agility, and coordination.
There are now so many tinikling products available in the United States. Not just tinikling music CDs and dance-steps instruction DVDs, but also tinikling sticks and cords! For the authentic experience, you must find thick bamboo poles!
Here is the audio introduction.
pronounced GHEE-gheel, not jee-jeel
Gigil refers to the trembling or gritting of the teeth in response to a situation that overwhelms your self-control. It’s been commonly described as an irresistible urge to squeeze something cute.
When a Filipina sees a cute baby, she feels a barely controllable desire to pinch the baby’s cheeks and has a hard time controlling herself. What she’s experiencing is called panggigigil.
Luksong-Tinik (“Jump Thorns”) is a native Filipino game.
Equipment: None, but legs and hands
Requires at least three people to be properly played.
There are two words in the dictionary that can serve as translations for the English “broom.”
The simple noun that is widely used is walis.
Up until a few decades ago, the word pamalis (pangwalis) was also common, and if you use it today, it can still be understood, because it is a conjugation of the verb walis and it literally means “something used for sweeping.”
There are two main types of native brooms used in the Philippines — the walis tingting for outdoors and the walis tambo for smooth floors indoors and perhaps on the patio.
Walis-tingting is a broom made from the thin midribs of palm leaves. The stiff ribs are tied up on one end. It is usually paired with a simply constructed dustpan, as you can see in the picture. The can used for the dustpan is usually a cutout of an aluminum can of cooking oil.
walis tingting at daspan
broom and “dustpan”
