What It’s Like to Be a Language Student Again: My First Tagalog Lesson

by Matthew Driscoll

I recently started learning Tagalog with our teacher, Andrea. The first one was an experimental lesson to see if it could be done. Spoiler alert: it can be done. We started with greetings, and I immediately started stumbling. Why is it that I can memorize the entire script of Star Wars IV, but “magandang umaga” was too much for my working memory? Whatever the reason, it was true. Lucky for me, Andrea is a patient teacher.

A couple of things stand out to me when I think back to that first lesson. First, there was a lot of laughing. I think that was because we were having a good time. Then, when I hit a wall and started feeling frustrated with myself, Andrea stepped in and switched it up. It was surreal being on the other end of a lesson. When I teach college classes, people usually expect me to know most of the answers. But now, I was kind of walking into the unknown, and it was a little scary because there was no guarantee that I would ever be any good at Tagalog. She reassured me, though, that we made serious progress that day and that I should keep pushing forward. The best part of the lesson was when I tried to use some of the words I learned with my colleagues at a DLG meeting. They couldn’t really help smiling when I did that. It could be that my American accent was amusing to them…but it could also mean that they like when I try to connect with them from an earnest place.

The cherry on top of the first lesson with Andrea was that a few days later, my wife, Julie, took her first Tagalog lesson (she’s so supportive of me). Although Julie does not have a master's degree in linguistics, she managed to perform much better as a language student than me. Now she’s ahead in her lessons, and I’m still trying to catch up. I think she and I are becoming slightly competitive about who can speak better Tagalog. Wish me luck!