Conversational Tagalog: A Functional-Situational Approach

For self-instruction, this book is just OK. It does provide a decent introduction to the vocabulary and grammar, but don't expect to be able to speak or understand much Tagalog at the end. The grammatical explanations are confined to describing the forms of the word, but almost nothing is said about HOW the forms are used (especially the different verb forms, the heart of the language). You will have no idea how to use an actor-focus verb versus an object-focus verb. On the other hand, I do like the vocabulary lists at the back that are arranged by topic. Ramos' strong point is providing some information about Filipino culture. This one not bad given some limitations; you could do worse. But for serious learners, I recommend Pilipino Through Self-Instruction, by John Wolff, et al., from Cornell.

This was a wonderful. It is a great way to learn to speak tagalog and unlike other products almost everything I say, my Tagalog speaking friends understand just exactly what I'm talking about. If you buy this book you should Definitely buy a tagalog-english/english-tagalog dictionary because this book was designed for a class room that has a teacher to explain pronunciation and different words. It has a tagalog-english glossary in the back, but if you are like me (still learning) you will be looking back there (in the glossary) at least 4 to 5 times per page that you read and there is only a 50% chance that the word you will be looking for is there. By the end of this book you will have a better understanding of tagalog sentence structure, be able to speak conversationally in a variety of situation (not all situations), and will be impressing your filipino friends and their famlies. O sige, Diyan ka na. Pupunta ako sa aklatan. Paalam

I found this book complimented my other books well in learning Tagalog. There are many gramatical explinations and good vocabulary builders. The focus is not pure memorization but to develop your skills in the language and understand how it works. The text is probably better for a more structured learning environment. It is not geared towards the "Teach yourself" learner.