Dịch - Tagalog-English - today

Hi hankat,

Aren't there too many "already" in this text?

Hi Lilian,

Yes you're right, but that is how the Tagalog writer expressed himself/herself in his text. It is casually written; not at all scholarly or formally. The words are not even written the way they should be. We can call the text as "slangily" or colloquially written as one is writing a text message through a cellphone which is very common in the Philippines.

Well...let's see if we manage to improve it a bit anyway

"Yes, I have already a child..5 years old"

Do you think that here the "already" refers to the fact of "already having a child" or that "the child is already 5 years old"?

"I heard that you are already married."

I think here we can avoid the "already" and leave only:
"I've heard you are/have gotten married."

Finally for that:

"We're already residing here..."

Perhaps it could be: "We are still (?) living here..."


What do you think?

hankat? are you there?

The 2nd "already" must be a reply to a prior question if the author has a child already. In Tagalog we frequently use "na" which means already or now, depending on the context.

The third "already" can be replaced by "now". The Tagalog author means to say that that they are "now" residing in Subic. In other words, they were resident of another place before and now transferred to this new place.