TED Talk

Communication is very important for everyone and it is extremely important for me when I’m with my grandparents. But I’ve been having trouble communicating with my grandparents recently. They both speak and understand Tagalog and English but since they’re getting older, they are getting dementia and forget that I don’t understand or speak Tagalog. So, in order to communicate better with them, I have decided to try to learn Tagalog so I can at least understand what they’re saying. These past few weeks, I have watched YouTube tutorial videos on how to speak Tagalog and I watched some tv shows and movies on The Filipino Channel. I also visited them and had them speak to me only in Tagalog so I could try to see how much I understand. Learning Tagalog not only helped me understand what my family members are saying, but it strengthened my relationship with my grandparents. 

Something that happened while I was trying to learn Tagalog was that I strengthened my relationship with my grandparents. I know that my relationship strengthened with them because instead of them speaking to me in English all the time, they could speak to me in Taglish, a combination of Tagalog and English since I can’t understand everything yet. 

Mutual communication strengthened my relationship with them because it is easier to know what they’re saying instead of having my dad translate everything they are saying. Now, I can talk to them without having almost every sentence being translated. I’ve also noticed that ever since I started to learn Tagalog, I finally understand FIlipino jokes and I can share them with my grandparents and we can laugh about them together. Seeing a smile on their faces makes me realize that our relationship has strengthened.

Learning Tagalog has not only helped me personally but it also helped impact the community. Now that I understand a little bit of Tagalog, I am sort of like a translator for my grandparents when they can’t think of a word in English. This helped the impact the community because whenever I’m with my grandparents, they sometimes take me out to eat or run errands with them. So, if we ever go out and they can’t think of a word in English, I can help translate what they’re saying now that I can understand Tagalog. 

Although I am not fluent in Tagalog, I understand a lot more than I thought I would. But, as I was learning how to speak and understand Tagalog, I realized that it was pretty hard for me due to the possibility that I didn’t start when I was younger. I didn’t learn it when I was younger, so it’s a bit harder to learn now since I wasn’t raised on speaking two languages. Since I didn’t learn Tagalog at a young age, it was a bit hard for me to learn. Also, another factor that might add to it is that I only had 6 weeks to learn and although it might be possible for some people, it was hard for me to be fluent in Tagalog.

In conclusion, learning Tagalog not only helped me understand what my family members are saying, but it strengthened my relationship with my grandparents. Communication has always been struggle when I’m talking with my grandparents, but now that I learned how to speak and understand a little bit of Tagalog, I felt like my relationship with them strengthened. Not only did it strengthen with them, but it strengthened with my other family members who live in the Philippines because now I can direct message them without having to translate almost every single sentence.