Here are some of the funny Filipino grammar and vocabulary questions that my Filipino friends and I shared with each other about Filipino English translation:
1. How do you translate this in English: Pang-ilan ka sa inyong magkakapatid?
I guess I have encountered this question before. Somebody asked me the same question but it was about the ordinal rank of the president (Pang ilang presidente ng Pilipinas si ______?) This is actually a question that is also discussed even in English websites such as english.stackexchange by native speakers themselves. On this website, I like how a user answered the question. It’s like “where does (name of the President) fall in the sequence of (country) presidents?” However, there are also many different answers to choose from on the website.
So going back to the first question above, what is the answer to my sister’s tricky question?
My husband said, “What’s your birth order in your family? Yeah, he has a point there although it sounds a bit formal. But yes, he gave me a keyword and that is birth order.
Best Answer: I found a great way to answer this on this website: http://www.abc.net.au. It’s “Are you the firstborn, a middle child or youngest in your family?” (Traver’s, 2017 para. 1). The article’s title is Birth order: How your position in the family can influence your personality.
So my husband is right, maybe we can ask the question, what is your birth order in your family or what is your birth position in your family? It’s understandable enough but I have to ask a native speaker how they really ask this in their country.
2. What is the correct English expression for mabilis kumilos?
(Context: In a job interview, the applicant wanted to say he responds swiftly to something but he said he was fast moving. Probably what he meant was he was fast in delivering food but it could have been better if he used this phrase “demonstrated ability in delivering food and beverages with perfect coordination and ease or swift in taking action which I found on this website: https://www.livecareer.com
3. Which is correct, recycable or recyclable?
Somebody asked me this question and I couldn’t answer because I got confused. But then the correct term is recyclable. It makes sense actually to ask this question because another colleague of mine used the wrong term recycable while talking to a friend. She also got confused and asked, wait is that recycable or recyclable?
4. Is it my grandmother looks up to or looks out to us? What really is the correct expression?
My colleague and I were doing a mock interview and the applicant said, “My grandmother looks up to us because our Mom is abroad” and the two of us wanted to correct the expression but we couldn’t find the right term. Well, sometimes it really happens.
Best answer: looks after which means to take care of
Yes, my husband was the one who corrected me. He said it’s look after someone, look up to means you respect someone or you have a great respect for someone while look out means to watch out. These phrasal verbs are really confusing sometimes.
5. Is there a word unstumble or malstumble?
Best answer: none
Yes, sometimes we are also not sure if the word we want to use exists or not.
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