Learn Tagalog Through Topics You Actually Care About

LingoBear creates short Tagalog passages on topics you choose. Tap any word for an instant English translation and build your vocabulary as you read. Austronesian language, basis of Filipino (the national language of the Philippines), 28-letter Latin alphabet, Austronesian focus system, VSO/VOS, FSI Category III, ~83M speakers.

Tap any word for instant translation

Every word in your Tagalog reading passage is clickable. Get English translations and grammar help — useful for parsing the Austronesian focus markers (ang, ng, sa).

Read about topics you choose

Type any topic and LingoBear generates a fresh Tagalog reading passage — from Pinoy basketball to Filipino fiesta culture.

What is the difference between Tagalog and Filipino?

Tagalog is the indigenous Austronesian language of central Luzon (around Manila), with around 25 million native speakers. Filipino is the national language standardised since 1937 and re-codified in the 1987 constitution as a 'Tagalog-based' lingua franca that is supposed to incorporate elements from other Philippine languages. In practice contemporary Filipino is largely Tagalog with heavy English code-switching ('Taglish').

How does Tagalog's focus system work?

Tagalog has an Austronesian focus (or trigger) system: the verb takes affixes that mark which participant is being highlighted, and that argument is then marked by ang. So binili ko ang libro 'I bought the book' (object-focused) vs bumili ako ng libro 'I (am the one who) bought a book' (actor-focused). Word order is mainly verb-initial, with markers ang, ng and sa carrying syntactic load.