Check the quality of your Tagalog translation

Tagalog alphabet and characters

The Tagalog alphabet should display only the following characters. If your document is not showing correctly, then first check that the encoding for that program and font supports Austronesian languages.

Tagalog lower-case characters

Tagalog grammar rules

In general nouns refer to objects, persons or abstract ideas.

Tagalog is gender-neutral language; it pronouns do not have specific genders.

While Tagalog nouns are not inflected, they are usually preceded by case-marking particles. This “trigger system” is a distinct feature of Philippines languages which is commonly known as Austronesian alignment or Philippine- or Austronesian-type voice system.

Tagalog formatting rules

Short date formatMM-dd-yyyy
e.g. 03-17-2016
Long date formatmmmm dd, yyyy
e.g. March 17, 2016

Tagalog capitalisation usage

  • Capitalize the first word of a sentence.
  • When the translation of a capitalized source term is a hyphenated compound word, only the first word is capitalized.
  • When the first word of a source phrase is capitalized, capitalize the first word of the translation phrase.
  • When the entire sentence or phrase of the source text is capitalized, only the significant words in the translated sentence or phrase are capitalized. The three (or fewer) lettered words like markers, particles and linkers are not capitalized unless it is the first word of the phrase or sentence.
  • Capitalize proper nouns (names of people, places, product names, organizations, languages, etc.)
  • Trademarks or product names
  • Names of national, political, racial, social, civic and athletic groups or organizations.
  • Abbreviations and acronyms in the source text.
  • Geographic regions but not directions.

Solutions for Tagalog

Stepping Stone provides translation and localisation services for Tagalog