Last week, I was listening to a friend of mine teach our colleague at work how to speak Chabacano. Now since this person spoke Spanish it made things a bit easier. It was strange to find out though that Chabacano grammar is not at all that simple.
My friend told this person that in Chabacano when asking someone if he/she has something, you simply have to say tiene + pronoun + thing. An example is this:
Chabacano: Tiene tu comida?
Spanish: Tienes comida?
English: Do you have (any) food
This person then told me, tiene yo pregunta” (which was correct) and then I asked him, “cosa tuyo pregunta?” This was where he made a mistake because he said, “no tiene yo pregunta”. That was when I realized that the rule he was taught only applies to positive sentences. However, in the negative, it should be no hay + pronoun + thing. Here is a negative response to the sample sentence above:
Chabacano: No hay yo comida
Spanish: No tengo comida
English: I don’t have any food
This form though is not only used in declarative sentences but can also be used in questions. Here is an example:
Chabacano: No hay tu comida?
Rough English Translation: Don’t you have any food?
3 reactions:
hi! this is one interesting entry. i've wanted to learn chabacano since last year. pwede bang magpaturo? all i know are "ta ama iyo kontigo" and "ketal" and i'm not even sure if i spelled the words right. :)
Ayos! Marunong ako mag-Spanish. Gusto ko rin matutunan ang Chavacano. :)
im startng learning chavacano since 3 days from now with the help of one of my classm8s hu knew chvcno. i knw a lot of lords by nw, but i aint good in using dem n a sentnce especially d arrangemnt of words
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