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Improve your life: learn the langauge!

September 5, 2011 by 8 Comments
Me and My language teacher, Bebe

When I first moved to the Philippines, I thought to myself - "why should I learn the local language, everybody can speak English, after all!"  Well, it is true that most people here can speak English, but it is a different English than what an American speaks, and we do not always communicate clearly with each other. Something happened that caused me to re-evaluate my thinking when it came to language.  A number of years ago we had a visitor from the States who came to see us here in the Philippines.  He and I got talking about various topics as we sat out on the patio sipping mango shakes.  He told me that the US had changed a lot since … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Language

What is the proper abbreviation for the Philippines?

August 21, 2011 by
Philippine-Flag-150x150

I don’t know that I would call this a “big deal” but over the years, I have often bristled when I hear people call the Philippines as “the PI.”  Why?  Well, “the PI” was what the Philippines was called when it was not yet a country, during it’s colonial days, especially when it was under [...] … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Bob Martin, Language, Live in the Philippines Tagged With:

Continuing my jeepney adventures

August 17, 2011 by 16 Comments
New Friends

As I mentioned the other day, I've been riding jeepneys lately.  I consider it a further part of my acculturation to the Philippines.  I've already lived here a long time, more than a decade, but I can still learn more about the culture here and make efforts to better fit in culturally.  So, that is what I am doing. As far as I can recall, I don't think I've missed a single day of riding the jeepney somewhere since I started last week.  I've had mostly good adventures on the jeep, but the one bad one that I wrote about a couple days ago.  Today, I need to go to Union Bank for some business that I need to take care of there... so I'll … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Bob Martin, Davao, Exercise, Featured, Language, My Thoughts Tagged With: , ,

Market Visits with Friends

August 17, 2011 by
Randy-Bebe-150x150

Over the past few months, I have had the pleasure of getting together with two friends from the States.  Both of these friends are likely to be known by long time LiP Readers.  First, back in June through August or so, Kevin Smith visited the Philippines with his wife and children.  Kevin was one of the early writers here on LiP after I opened up the site to multiple writers (originally, I was the only writer on this site).  Kevin lives in Pennsylvania, but he really wants to move to the Philippines as soon as possible.  Kevin is a school teacher, and teaches Math and Science. Next, my friend, Randy Countryman visited the Philippines in … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Bob Martin, Davao, Language, Live in the Philippines Tagged With:

I passed the test! With new Podcast!

July 11, 2011 by
test

Today, I’ll be sharing a new podcast with you, but that will have to wait until the end of the story. It’s been a while since I did a podcast, so it feels good to put one up again. Over the past 3 weeks, I have been having examinations as part of my Bisaya Class.  For new readers who don’t know, Bisaya (or Cebuano) is the main language used in the Central and Southern parts of the Philippines. As the name implies, Cebuano originated in Cebu, but much of the Visayas and Mindanao speak this language, or a variation of it.  For the past 3 years I have been taking Cebuano classes and learning to speak the language. The … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Bob Martin, Language, Live in the Philippines Tagged With:

My new PC!

June 29, 2011 by 18 Comments
My new USFF PC, sitting on my desk next to my cellular phone

In the past week or so, I purchased a new PC!  It is kind of a departure for me, because this computer is much different than any other computer that I have bought in my lifetime.  And, believe me, in my lifetime I have bought a lot of PCs too!  What is so different about this PC?  Well, a lot of things, and I'll be telling you about that later in the article. It all started out with my old laptop, a Compaq laptop that was only about 18 months old, or so.  I started having problems with it.  The monitor was starting to give out on it.  If I touched the monitor, the screen would go white.  Because I make my living on the Internet, I … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business, Entrepreneurism, Featured, Language, Making Money, My Thoughts Tagged With:

The job that wasn’t

February 11, 2011 by
teaching-english-150x150

I got an interesting text message back around Christmas.  The text was from my former Bisaya teacher from about 5 years ago.  Her name is Au, and we keep in touch on a semi-regular basis.  Au is a Professor at Ateneo de Davao University.  Very nice lady, and quite intelligent.  I enjoy knowing Au, but for the language lessons, my learning style and her teaching style just did not click, and that is why I ended up going to a different teacher.  Still, though, we are friends. Anyway, back around Christmas time, Au texted me and asked me if I would be interested in teaching English.  I responded to her that I really am not a teacher, and … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Bob Martin, Business, Language, Live in the Philippines Tagged With:

Chatting in Bisaya

February 11, 2011 by 12 Comments
Bob & his Bisaya friends

One of the things that I find has been fun and helpful to me in terms of learning language is chatting, and interacting in other ways over the Internet in Bisaya.  In recent weeks, I have been using Facebook to do this.  If I update my status and write it in Bisaya, it always draws a lot of comments!  When there are comments, I always interact with them too, usually exclusively in Bisaya. I find that this is just another way to add more use of Bisaya into my daily life.  It also helps me by making me interact with a number of other people.  I mean, if you always only interact with the same people, I believe that the Bisaya you speak … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Featured, Language Tagged With: ,