Have you checked "Cebuano" ? Thats same language, just dialects.
I found such course many years ago but didnt check if it was good.

NOTE. When you try to read, English pronounce some letters wrong
Filipino languages pronounce the letters as e g German, Spanish and Swedish do. So if you have knowledge in any of them, you get use of that.

I believe Bisaya is as Tagalog concerning not having genus words as "he" and "she" which can be very confusing if not knowing and thinking of that. BUT have something as Spanish has, the genus and such can be seen at OTHER words (as Spanish has at verbs. )

(Rather much of Tagalog/Filipino is btw borrowed words from Spanish, which assisted me to understand some more, although can have got twisted. E g Spanish "como esta" has become "kamusta" . In Filipino the Spanish counting words are counted equal official as the Tagalog ones.)

 

I speak Bisaya and Tagalog. My 2 recommendations: find a good woman ; you'll have the motivation and the resource. Second, my go-to as I learn any new language: ask someone to teach you how to say "How do I say?" in Bisaya. "Unsaon nako pag-ingon?" that question never stops being very useful.

 

I have used an app called Udemy which is an online educational app. I bought a course called LEARN BISAYA - A Beginners Guide to the Cebuano Language
I really like the course and it really explains how they use words, sentence structure and the combining of words.
I hope this is allowed to recommend. I am not associated with the app in any way and make no money from the recommendation.

 

I just bought the same course!😂 it looks really good!

 

Fellow Expats, if the link is about and addresses the topic, you can post a link.

 

I have to admire your tenacity Caroline and if you succeed well done, I did some online tutelage as well as a private tutor many moons ago and in the end gave up as 90% of the of the people I dealt with spoke English and sure I learnt basic Tagalog but smiles from many with my pronunciation except for swearing,,,, I have that down pat.
Good luck and enjoy the voyage.

Cheers, Steve.

 

Try this link University of Hawai‘i Press - Manifold

 

And this link in addition Cebuano Grammar Notes | University of Hawai‘i Press - Manifold

 

Those who speak 2 languages are bilingual, 3 languages tri-lingual, 1 language American, Pinoy typically at least 3, (my wife 6 very well except when mad). Everybody has a distinct learning style. Mine ie is not memorization. Immersion to me is frustrating. I seem to be doing best with flash cards for common phrases from the Peace Corps. using the Anki app. Remember not much is written in Bisayan/Cebuano, therefore as spoken only is a bit more fluid than you are used to.

 

Those who speak 2 languages are bilingual
...
my wife 6 very well

Recently was advice spread at internet about keeping brain ok at high age. One of the advices was learning a SECOND language!!! I suppouse it was written by an American, because its only common among Americans and perhaps some bush people, who arent at least bilingual allready

 

When I lived in the Philippines in the 80's I got tired of not understanding what the Filipinos around me were saying when they spoke together. Also not all speak English. My stepson has a church and reaches out to the very poor and many of them don't speak English well. This time around I plan to learn the language so I won't feel excluded. I hated not being able to understand what they were saying between themselves.

 

They are all multilingual so will just change languages to talk about you.

 

It's not that I think they are talking about me. It's just wanting to be more included. When I lived in Spain I learned Spanish and it was a much more enriching experience to be able to communicate with the locals in their language and to understand what is going on

 

CFelinedion, I wish you well in learning the language. I tried when I first got here, I even bought the Rosetta Stone Tagalog disc set back in 2010, and it did help some you're going to have troubles.

What hurt me is my poor or damaged hearing and then pronunciation, the Rosetta Stone disc set had voice recognition and also speech help, but my headset failed, and I couldn't find a quality headset at the time it was too much effort to order another and the prices were very high for headsets, there was no Lazada or Shopee back then.

The Mormons send their missionaries through a 6 month all day Philippine language course, and they do come here speaking Tagalog very well, who knows maybe they can help you, I'm not a Mormon and I only visited with their missionaries. For about 3 years I talked with the Jahova Witnesses (I can't accept their teachings or beliefs either) and they usually travel with a Philippine missionary, but they don't speak Tagalog they can't speak Tagalog, one of them I consider a friend, and we mainly gossip when together, and then I'll listen to what ever his message is that day, but he's a retired US Air Force man and his wife is Filipino his son is very bright and just finished High School, and he's going to be a Missionary here, but he can't speak Tagalog either so it's a very hard language to learn.

I did pick up some Tagalog in conjunction with the learning discs and local TV but still I can't understand most of the conversations even though I also have learned many words, the words that benefit me are items in the market area's, food, supplies and then learning colors and numbers.

 

many of them don't speak English well.

Yes. But many speak better = understandable than they think themselves. Some dont speak inspite of they can some because of they think "lose face" if their speech isnt good. But after speaking with them a while with my terrible pronounsiation several start answer in English.

It's not that I think they are talking about me. It's just wanting to be more included. When I lived in Spain I learned Spanish and it was a much more enriching experience to be able to communicate with the locals in their language and to understand what is going on

A long time ago I could speak Spanish half fluent (I even managed to make a no English speaking mechanic understand my Spanish my car needed gearbox repair !)
BUT I spoke and understood SLOW, so if I lost understanding what they talked about speedy, then I didnt understand the rest

Concerning the LOCAL Filipino language it can be nice to manage to haggle in it if bother to.

A male expat said he prefer to NOT understand what Filipinos say about him

 

Thanks for the info. It's a bit harder than that for me as I need bisaya! But I've now found a few apps and a course on udemy and some youtube videos so I am on my way. Oh and that course from Haawii university someone posted about and another app which peacecorps use which someone posted about. So it's coming along

 

Try Google translate ?

 

Google can only translate Tagalog so the other dialects won't translate.

 

My google translate is named Ben, 4/5 regional dialects, Spanish and of course English and perhaps why I don't make the effort to learn Ilocano (Local) or Tagalog aside from the very basics, I do get him with my French though getting rusty on that these days.
I think the OP's wish to learn the local language is admirable and given her writings and thinking will do well and assimilate so much easier.
Go for it Caroline.

Cheers, Steve.

 

For what it’s worth, my children used Visayan as their first language. In school lessons were largely in Tagalog and English. In spite of this, one of my children, in third year of college was doing some school assigned OJT. This was in Cebu. One coworker was instructing my child to record workers for the day……eleven. Spoken in Visayan/Cebuano. My child had to ask what number they just said. Never learned to count in Visayan.

 

I can add to that Mark. Are you going to use google translate on your phone/tablet or laptop in the wet market or trying to catch a train? Dealing with neighbours?
Most here from my experience are shy to speak English, when I first met the better half's family I would try to chat with them and never got an answer or an opo. Ben told me they were embarrassed to speak English to a foreigner but a year or 2 on they relaxed and comms in English are mostly easy.
Our worker here utters a few words in English with a distinct Ilocano pronunciation and it's cute but when I ask him if he can do xyz, yes Steve,,,,,,, he understands and as time goes on he is learning to relax and practicing his English skills with more and more dialogue. Smart young man that learns quickly.

Cheers, Steve.

 

I have made a free app to learn Cebuano vocabulary words for myself and am sharing with others,

At this time there are 4 groups of 96 word pairs to learn/study
I plan on there being closer to 50-100 groups
However I still need to prepare these groups
If I have time I may add audio, however I may need to make it an app on the Android Play store to save money

 

Bisaya translator

https://translatiz.com/translation/english-to-bisaya

 

That wasn't available year's ago and could really be helpful to or many of our fellow Expats especially for translation.

Little bit of gossip from the past, a fellow Expat was checking his fiance's various Facebook accounts and couldn't at the time translate the conversation but another Expat had his wife from Bisaya translate and it turned out his fiance had a long time female partner who also lived with them as a cousin.

 

My other half is slowly teaching me. The variations in the dialogue takes some getting used to, but I’m getting there. Starting to pick up the words in a conversation, but I struggle to form a sentence for a reply, but I need to learn it because it will come in handy when I visit her relatives who are not great with English.

with the appearance of AI I noticed Gemini does offer to teach the various ones. I would imagine chatGPT would also offer this, and the course you have the beauty of being able to summarise any learning sessions you have.