Product Details

• Actors: Various
• Directors: N. Mediarito
• Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: DC Entertainment
• DVD Release Date: November 20, 2006
• Run Time: 60 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000JLSPSY
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #253,151 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I love this series! Salamat, Ingrid - thank you! Mahal kita! I love you! Sumayaw ako! I danced! Paalam - Goodbye!, August 5, 2007

By 

Michael West "linguistic drudge" (Richmond, Virginia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Learn Tagalog DVD: Tagalog for Travelers (DVD)

I respectfully disagree with the reviewer of DVD One in this series, whose remarkably unkind review of this beautiful language series calls for studied rebuttal.

I absolutely *love* this series. Our *Guro*, Ingrid Mediarito, is a transplendent gem of a teacher. I secretly hope she will adopt me someday - I think she needs me as her amanuensis! Ingrid, are you out there? Mahal kita!

Tagalog is such an incredibly beautiful language! The first DVD in this series provides an excellent "basic" introduction to the fundamentals of Tagalog phonology - the ABAKABA alphabet, Tagalog numbers (bilang) and time (oras), etc. It also teaches important grammar basics. The Five "Ws" for example, which to my mind constitute an essential constituent of the Rosetta Stone (along with personal pronouns and possessives, also taught herein) for unlocking any language. These essential elements are taught thoroughly and patiently in the first DVD. The complaint lodged is that this information is too basic. Of course, that is why it is called "basic" Tagalog. Without a thorough, "reflexive" knowledge of these basics, the learner will be completely lost when he or she attempts to understand more complicated locutions. In my opinion, the DVD does a terrific job of teaching the phonetic basics of Tagalog. For example, the section where the consonant sounds (Katinig) are combined with the vowel sounds (Patinig) is terrific. If learners assiduously lucubrate over the phonetic exemplars presented in DVD One, they will be well on their way to achieving an authentic Filipino accent when they proceed to the more advanced lessons.

The disenchanted reviewer laments the absence of written supplemental materials. I agree that such supplemental materials are a welcome nicety, but in this case I interpret the identified *deficiency* as a plus. The DVDs present a wealth of vocabulary, accompanied by attractive graphics, which help provide a visual/aural "glue" that cements the new information in the learner's mind. Also, when the learner takes notes, the act of writing the information down and seeing the information on the screen, in conjunction with the graphic cues, serves to further cement the information on the brain.

Because active learning is almost always more successful than passive, having the learner take notes is a wise approach, in my book.

The Intermediate DVD steps up the pace considerably, with a wealth of new vocabulary and grammar points introduced. The DVD begins with a prodigious presentation of vocabulary words, followed by a review and expansion of the Important Phrases introduced on the first DVD. There is a helpful introduction to sentence formation and "applications." This is where these DVDs, and our lovely maharishi, Ingrid, are so very effective. They may well present the same information available in other materials, but they present it in such a systematic and straightforward manner that really works!

The section on Linkers and Markers was particularly helpful to me, since on previous forages into the lush and forbidding forest of Tagalog syntax, I found these grammatical abstrusities both formidable and . . . well, confounding.

Our beloved Ingrid does a wonderful job explaining just what these strange words are and how they function in the language. Also priceless are the possessive drills, teaching Akin, Iyo, Inyo, Kaniya, Kanila, Amin, etc. For example, you are probably wondering, just how do you say "is our house beautiful?" in Tagalog? The answer, "Maganda ba ang bahay naming" simply cannot be intuited (or understood) without the patient parsing of linkers, markers and possessives that is provided in DVD 2.

As special treats and recess from your studies, the DVDs provide maganda and sensuous visual tours of the Philippines, along with valuable cultural tips and suggestions. The kaleidoscope of images presented astro-project the rapt student to this tropical paradise. The tour of Filipino cuisine, for example, with mouthwatering and scrumptious images of Sinigang, Nilaga, Adobo, Litson, Kare-Kare, Turon, and Bibinka makes one yearn to migrate to the Philippines permanently and take a Filipino *babae* for your wife.

This material is certainly available through other sources, but my investigations have yet to uncover a resource that provides such patient and effective training in such an accessible format - all with a pulchritudinous native Filipino lass holding your hand throughout and promising it will be all right.

By the time the sedulous leaner pops in the Advanced DVD, he or she is well on their way to fluency in Tagalog. Here the challenges increase, and the linguistic terrain becomes steeper and more rocky. Oh, but the vistas one videes when he reaches the peak!!!!

In DVD Three, the learner discovers how to construct complex sentences in Tagalog, paraphrase and perform sentence transformations, understand the gist of conversations and reading passages, and comes face to face with the most elusive and fierce of linguistic permutations - the Tense.

"Why so tense," you ask? Because tenses are - well, intense!!!!

When the student gets to conjugating "mag," verbs, "ma" verbs, "hin" verbs, and "in" verbs, he is well on his way to full, sensuous immersion in the warm, wet, languid waters of his adopted Filipino language. In case you fear you might drown, however, do not despair. Ingrid is our ubiquitous lifeguard! When she feels you have had enough, she plucks you straight from the didactic waters and takes you on yet another exciting tour of the provinces of the Philippines, from Luzon to Visaya and Minandao and all points in between. The panoply of sights is almost overwhelming in their wild and exotic beauty - but by now, you will be so immersed in the language and culture of the Philippines that this magical, mystery tour will feel like a long-awaited homecoming!

The Fourth Disc available from DC Entertainment, "Tagalog for Travelers," is an excellent resource to use independently or together with the preceding Discs. Unlike the Three Part series, which carefully parses and explains many of the abstruse grammatical elements of Tagalog, the Travelers disc is more like a Video Phrase Book, with lists of helpful phrases and vocabulary, interspersed by interesting vignettes on the Philippines and her people. If you want to master a foreign language, you really can't get too much reinforcement, so I recommend the Travelers DVD, if only as a gently-paced review of many of the syntactic and semantic elements introduced in the full course.

Will the learner be fully fluent in Tagalog at the conclusion of the course? Hindi po! There are other courses I would recommend for a more complete study of the language, including the Teach Yourself course and soon-to-be released Living Language Ultimate Series. However, without a sound foundation in the basics of the language, these more advanced courses can be very difficult and even overwhelming. In this fan's humble opinion, Ingrid's pearl of a course is a maganda (beautiful), magara (elegant) and mabuti (good) place to start.

Salamat, Ingrid - thank you! Mahal kita! I love you! Sumayaw ako! I danced! Paalam - Goodbye!

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Tagalog learning aide I own, July 7, 2008

By 

R. Turner (Illinois) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Learn Tagalog DVD: Tagalog for Travelers (DVD)

I like this DVD better than any other material I have, CDs, computer applications, and Learn Tagalog 3: Advanced. It is a great mixture of vocabulary and phrases. I prefer hearing and seeing the words together, as opposed to a book or a tape alone. Nice pace and scenes of the Philippines mixed in. Salamat!