On Indonesian, Filipino, and Ilocano Languages
I was answering my homework for my Bahasa Indonesia class. I missed the last meeting, but I am being bibo so I e-mailed the teacher to ask for that week's homework. The first part, I really couldn't answer, but the second part, which is reading comprehension, was rather an easy one. And after reading the entire clip, I felt proud of myself for being able to understand 98% of it.
It reminded me of the exam I took last semester for the level A2 class, where I probably only understood 2 words in the entire questionnaire. Of course, I had to return the questionnaire and admit that I am not yet fit to take the next level.
In 2017, I enrolled in a Bahasa Indonesia class offered by the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino for free. During that time, I was already taking Espanol classes at Instituto Cervantes in Makati. But the classes did not overlap and it will only be on weekends, plus it's free, so I took it anyway.
However, I missed the first meeting because I had to go to Yogyakarta, Indonesia for a few days for work. I had zero knowledge of the Indonesian language and made no efforts to at least google the basics because it's not a requirement for work anyway.
While at our hotel in Yogyakarta, we needed a pair of scissors so my colleague and I went to the front desk to borrow one. But no one in the front desk could understand English. We went back to our room, looked for another thing we can use as an alternative for scissors, but nothing would work. We went back to the front desk, and still no one understands us. Our event coordinator wasn't in the hotel that time. (After this event, my colleague and I would go on to bring our own scissors whenever we get sent to events.) And then while at the reception, I suggested to my colleague to google the Indonesian word for "gunting" (scissors in the Filipino language). One of the staff in the reception heard us and exclaimed, "Ah, gunting!" My colleague and I were surprised, we motioned again that we are indeed in need of gunting, this time we used the Filipino word which apparently is the same word for scissors in the Indonesian language. Ater all those troubles, in the end, we only needed to say the Filipino word pala.
Back to my Bahasa class (the very first one), I can say I was one of the top performing students and I credit this for knowing the Ilocano language. While Ibanag has a lot of borrowed words from Spanish, Ilocano, another language I speak, has a lot of similar words with Bahasa Indonesia (e.g. ikan for fish, ribu for thousands, baru for new, etc.)
It reminded me of the exam I took last semester for the level A2 class, where I probably only understood 2 words in the entire questionnaire. Of course, I had to return the questionnaire and admit that I am not yet fit to take the next level.
In 2017, I enrolled in a Bahasa Indonesia class offered by the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino for free. During that time, I was already taking Espanol classes at Instituto Cervantes in Makati. But the classes did not overlap and it will only be on weekends, plus it's free, so I took it anyway.
However, I missed the first meeting because I had to go to Yogyakarta, Indonesia for a few days for work. I had zero knowledge of the Indonesian language and made no efforts to at least google the basics because it's not a requirement for work anyway.
While at our hotel in Yogyakarta, we needed a pair of scissors so my colleague and I went to the front desk to borrow one. But no one in the front desk could understand English. We went back to our room, looked for another thing we can use as an alternative for scissors, but nothing would work. We went back to the front desk, and still no one understands us. Our event coordinator wasn't in the hotel that time. (After this event, my colleague and I would go on to bring our own scissors whenever we get sent to events.) And then while at the reception, I suggested to my colleague to google the Indonesian word for "gunting" (scissors in the Filipino language). One of the staff in the reception heard us and exclaimed, "Ah, gunting!" My colleague and I were surprised, we motioned again that we are indeed in need of gunting, this time we used the Filipino word which apparently is the same word for scissors in the Indonesian language. Ater all those troubles, in the end, we only needed to say the Filipino word pala.
Back to my Bahasa class (the very first one), I can say I was one of the top performing students and I credit this for knowing the Ilocano language. While Ibanag has a lot of borrowed words from Spanish, Ilocano, another language I speak, has a lot of similar words with Bahasa Indonesia (e.g. ikan for fish, ribu for thousands, baru for new, etc.)
