Comments on: In Defense of Chabacano http://taglish.org/in-defense-of-chabacano/ Just another language Tue, 04 May 2010 05:00:22 +1000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: Antonio http://taglish.org/in-defense-of-chabacano/comment-page-1/#comment-246 Antonio Tue, 06 Oct 2009 19:03:15 +0000 http://emanila.com/philippines/2008/04/18/in-defense-of-chabacano/#comment-246 I have to disagree. Why teach the filipino a "watered down" spanish which would not really be helpful in communicating with the rest of the hispanic world? Sure, THEY might understand what we mean when we say, for example "Vos nadar ayer" through deduction, but how about US? Would we understand them when they say "Nadasteis"? It wouldn't be of any use at all. Any language is difficult. English is difficult. Tagalog is difficult. Spanish is also difficult but nontheless learnable. Instead of learning "simplified spanish" or "Chavacano" why not study spanish directly? Wouldn't it be more practical to simply point out the huge reservoir of Spanish words in Tagalog (or Bisaya) which could easily be intergrated into Spanish sentences. In most cases, it would be enough to encourage students to learn Spanish, knowing they already know a lot of Spanish words through their native Philippine languages. I love the Chavacano languages. However, learning 2 different grammars (Chavacano/Simplified Spanish first then proper Spanish) seems to me like a lot of wasted time and resources. Just my 2 cents. I have to disagree. Why teach the filipino a “watered down” spanish which would not really be helpful in communicating with the rest of the hispanic world? Sure, THEY might understand what we mean when we say, for example “Vos nadar ayer” through deduction, but how about US? Would we understand them when they say “Nadasteis”? It wouldn’t be of any use at all.

Any language is difficult. English is difficult. Tagalog is difficult. Spanish is also difficult but nontheless learnable. Instead of learning “simplified spanish” or “Chavacano” why not study spanish directly? Wouldn’t it be more practical to simply point out the huge reservoir of Spanish words in Tagalog (or Bisaya) which could easily be intergrated into Spanish sentences. In most cases, it would be enough to encourage students to learn Spanish, knowing they already know a lot of Spanish words through their native Philippine languages.

I love the Chavacano languages. However, learning 2 different grammars (Chavacano/Simplified Spanish first then proper Spanish) seems to me like a lot of wasted time and resources.

Just my 2 cents.

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