suki

It can be really hot in the Philippines, especially right now where I am in Mindanao, where it's uniquely dry this year but also somehow insanely humid.

I run a lot, and conventionally most — or I think all — Filipinos tend to run either very early in the morning or at night. But for various reasons, I often find myself running in the heat of the middle of the day, which I actually enjoy quite a bit, despite some confused looks and the occasional “Hey Joe!” from the dusty trucks passing by. Side note: as an American I'm still getting used to the fact that running races in the Philippines usually start between 1am and 3am.

Needless to say, the mid-day two-hour runs require quite a bit of hydration, so I now have a mental map of all the buko (coconut) tinderos along my usual routes. One of many incredible benefits of living in the Philippines that I'm still grateful for daily: fresh buko juice, straight from the coconut, mid-run. Can't beat it.

But as I've started to tip-toe into gaining more confidence speaking Tagalog, I've realized another benefit to these tinderos, who have now become a suki. It's a daily chance to practice Tagalog, judgement free…over and over, with a similar conversation that you get better at one day at a time.

A suki is not only a word you should know and a relationship you should have. It's also an unlock for your Tagalog.

You know how people weirdly seem to tell their hairdresser or barber anything? Sukis are kind of like that. They just want to sell you — in this case — coconuts, and they don't really care if your Tagalog or your accent is terrible, as long as they know how many coconuts you want to buy. Will the transaction go through regardless, in English or Tagalog? Absolutely. But it's a rare chance to practice everyday Tagalog. Where your colleagues or friends will probably switch to fluent English the second you stumble on grammar, your suki probably won't.

• Day 1Dala buko.Not right, but he knows what you mean
• Day 2Dalawang buko.A bit direct, but correct
• Day 3Gusto ko dalawang buko.Still direct, but we're getting there
• Day 4Kumusta po kayo? Gusto ko dalawang buko lang po.Now we're talking

And then, eventually, day five:

Repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition. But more importantly: a completely safe, low-pressure, fun way to start speaking Tagalog.

And I've found even more than that — the smiles, and the appreciation. As you learn Tagalog, the Filipinos you interact with will appreciate it in different ways. For my colleagues who have worked internationally for years, some of whom often remind me of English words I'm forgetting, their appreciation of my Tagalog learning journey is less about the words I say and more about the fact that I can more deeply understand the culture.

For a suki, it's different. They probably prefer to speak in Tagalog rather than English, so it's an opportunity to connect with someone in a place they find familiar. That's why, as bad as my Tagalog sounds, they often listen and are smiling. Even if you did a terrible job of asking to buy two coconuts, you successfully communicated a much more important message, one at the heart of a suki relationship: I'm not just passing through one time. I'm here to stay, long term.

And it's also a heck of a lot cheaper than Tagalog lessons.

But don't stop doing those either.

Look closely at that day-five sentence and almost every piece of it turns on two small things: a linker that glues numbers to what they count, and the markers that tell you what a sentence is about.

Counting takes the linker. This is the same rule from the -an grammar we covered before, doing a different job. A number that ends in a vowel takes -ng; one that ends in n takes -g; one that ends in any other consonant takes a free-standing na.

• isa → isang bukoone coconut
• dalawa → dalawang bukotwo coconuts
• tatlo → tatlong bukothree coconuts
• apat → apat na bukofour coconuts
• lima → limang bukofive coconuts

Apat is the one that looks like an exception and isn't. It ends in t, and a consonant that isn't n always takes the free-standing na — the same reason it's kapatid na babae for a sister.

The linker shows up again later in the same sentence: ngayon ends in n, so “this afternoon” is ngayong hapon.

Then lang softens the ask. It means just or only, and Filipinos use it constantly to take the edge off a request. Dalawang buko lang po isn't “two coconuts” — it's closer to “just two coconuts, please.” Adding lang and po to a bare noun phrase is most of what separates day two from day four.

• Dalawang buko.Two coconuts.
• Dalawang buko lang po.Just two coconuts, please.
• Uhaw na ako.I'm thirsty now.

That last na is a different word from the linker — here it means already or now, marking a change of state. Uhaw ako is “I'm thirsty.” Uhaw na ako is “I've gotten thirsty,” which after two hours in the sun is the more honest sentence.

And ang points at what the sentence is about. Mainit ang panahon — the weather is hot. The adjective comes first and ang flags the thing being described, which feels like a weird structure at first, but stops feeling strange faster than you'd think.

A final story. Repetition is powerful when learning.

There are a handful of long or complex sentences I can say almost with a native accent, ten-times-fast, in both Tagalog and Bisaya. One of those is, depending on the language:

• Paki-leave po sa mesa sa labas ng Tower 1.Tagalog, or everyday Taglish
• Palihog ibutang sa lamesa sa gawas sa Tower 1.Bisaya, Davao or southern Mindanao dialect

The reason is that I lived in tower 1 of an apartment building where Grab food orders were left on a table outside. For over a year, sometimes multiple times a day — hundreds of times in total — I said that same sentence, because it was so much easier for the driver if I said it in Tagalog or Bisaya.

When I was first learning those two sentences, I would have to think through the grammar. Now I know exactly how to say them, but I would struggle to explain the grammar to you. It just feels right that it's mesa in Tagalog and lamesa in Bisaya, or labas ng Tower 1 in Tagalog but of courseeee it's gawas sa Tower 1 in Bisaya. None of that came from a better understanding of grammar. Only repetition.

Which is exactly why having the same conversation with your suki every day can be such an unlock. Soon you'll just feel that dalawa buko must be wrong — it's dalawang — and that mainit panahon is missing something. You'll start thinking: it must be mainit ng panahon… no, no, that's not right. Mainit ang panahon. Yes. That feels right.

That feeling is not a shortcut around grammar. It is what grammar turns into, once you've said it enough times to a person who was never going to judge you for it.