Asking Questions

Get the question words right and you can hold a conversation with a vocabulary of fifty words. Get them wrong and a thousand won't save you.

The rule that changes the question

Siargaonon has one substitution that learners must understand, and it is not the one they expect.

There is no J-to-Y rule. The J is always hard. What there is, is an N-to-Y rule, and it lives in the particle attached to a question word.

Uno man — contracted to uman — asks what something is. It identifies a thing.
Uno may — contracted to umay — asks what someone does, did, or can do. It asks about an action.

Watch it work:

Uno man tun? — What is that?
Uno may imo? — What do you want?
Uno may ila tag laong? — What did they say?
Uno may ato mahimo? — What can we do?

Same question word. One letter of difference. Entirely different question. This single rule will do more for your Siargaonon than a hundred nouns.

The rest of the question words

Hae is where — and it hides inside haman (hae + man), which is the form you'll actually hear. Haman kaw singod? — where are you going?

Sin-o is who. Kun-o is when. Pila is how much.

Saying you didn't understand

You will need this one on your first day: Waya ako kasabot — I don't understand. There is waya again, doing a second job entirely unrelated to "left".

And when you need help: Kinahanglan ako nan tabang — I need help. Shorter, and just as good: Tabang.

Two phrases with more force than their translations suggest

Saba did-on is politely glossed as "be quiet over there." Let us be honest: it means shut up, and you will hear it from an older sibling long before you find it in any textbook.

Way sapayan — you're welcome — is said with the stress at the end: way sa-pa-YAN. It is the standard reply to salamat, and you will say it far more often than you expect, because people will thank you constantly for trying.

The words themselves — 53 entries