The fastest way to learn Cebuano is to spend most of your study time on Cebuano you can mostly understand. That kind of Cebuano is called comprehensible input. What you read and listen to should change as you improve, so the plan below shows what to do at each level and how to split an hour of study.
What to Do at Each Level
Find the level that sounds like you. Its bar shows how to spend an hour of study.
- Level 1
I'm just starting out or know only a few words.
Read and listen 35 min. Review 15 min. Speak 10 min.
Read short dialogues with audio and a translation, and listen to each one twice. Add the free Cebuano picture books on Let's Read, and say a few lines out loud.
- Level 2
I can handle simple exchanges.
Read and listen 40 min. Review 10 min. Speak 10 min.
Hide the translation and look up only the words that stop you. Read the free Cebuano books on Bloom Library, which are sorted by reading level, and start short talks with a tutor or a friend.
- Level 3
I follow conversations on familiar topics.
Read and listen 40 min. Review 5 min. Speak 15 min.
Watch Kuan on One, a Cebuano talk show with English subtitles, on ABS-CBN Entertainment's YouTube channel. Listen to each lesson once more without reading along, and talk about what you heard for longer.
- Level 4
I understand most content but miss some nuance.
Read and watch 45 min. Review 5 min. Speak 10 min.
Listen to Dili Ni Advice, a podcast where two sisters from Davao City talk about pop culture in Cebuano. Retell each episode in a few sentences.
- Level 5
I read complex topics but rare words slow me down.
Read and watch 50 min. Speak 10 min.
Read the news on SunStar's Superbalita Cebu, and watch Balitang Bisdak, the Cebuano TV news from GMA Regional TV. Look up only the words that block the story in the free Binisaya.com dictionary.
- Level 6
I read at near-native level.
Read and watch 50 min. Speak 10 min.
Read Cebuano stories on Wattpad and the news, and talk about them, for their own sake. When a word is new, look it up in John Wolff's A Dictionary of Cebuano Visayan, which is free on Project Gutenberg.
Move up a level when your lessons start to feel easy, and move back down if you lose the thread by the third line.
How Long Does It Take to Learn Cebuano?
Cebuano is not on the U.S. Foreign Service Institute's list, and its closest relatives there, Indonesian and Malay, take about 828 class hours to reach professional fluency. An older version of the list put Tagalog, one of Cebuano's closest relatives in the Philippines, in the group it calls hard languages, which takes about 1,012 class hours today.
| Language | FSI group | Full-time weeks |
|---|---|---|
| Spanish, French | Category I | 30 |
| Indonesian, Malay | Category II | 36 |
| Tagalog (older list), Russian, Vietnamese | Category III | 44 |
| Korean, Japanese, Mandarin | Category IV | 88 |
Here is how long 828 and 1,012 class hours take at different amounts of study a week:
| Study per week | Indonesian and Malay (828 hours) | FSI hard group (1,012 hours) |
|---|---|---|
| 3½ hours | About 4½ years | About 5½ years |
| 7 hours | About 2¼ years | About 2¾ years |
| 14 hours | About 14 months | About 17 months |
| 28 hours | About 7 months | About 8 months |
These are class hours, so treat them as a rough guide. Time you spend understanding Cebuano on your own counts too.
What Slows Learners Down
- Verb Charts AloneA Cebuano verb adds a small part to its front to show when something happens, so kaon (eat) becomes mokaon (will eat) and mikaon (ate). A chart of these forms is hard to use until you have read each one in many sentences.
- Material in Another LanguageCebuano is a different language from Tagalog, and the name Bisaya can also mean Hiligaynon or other Visayan languages. Check that a book or video is in Cebuano before you start.
- Content Far Too HardA Cebuano newscast where you know one word in five teaches you very little.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which Cebuano app should a beginner choose?
If you are serious about learning Cebuano, start with Bubblegum. Poppy writes lessons at your level about things you like. Our Cebuano app comparison covers courses, tutors and speaking apps too.
Can I learn Cebuano in three months?
You can learn enough Cebuano to greet your family and buy food at the market. At 14 hours a week, three months is about 180 hours, which is less than a quarter of the 828 class hours the Foreign Service Institute gives Indonesian and Malay.
How much should I study Cebuano each week?
Aim for three to five hours a week of Cebuano you understand, in sessions of at least 15 to 30 minutes. A longer session lets you get lost in a story, which teaches more than five minutes a day, and steady time each week matters more than a daily streak. Our post on deep sessions over daily streaks explains why.
Is Cebuano hard for English speakers?
Somewhat, by the Foreign Service Institute's measure: Cebuano's relatives on its lists fall in its middle and hard groups, below Japanese and Korean. Many younger Cebuano speakers mix in English words, such as mag-buy for "to buy," and most of the time goes into the verb forms and everyday words, which you pick up fastest from Cebuano you understand.
Is Bubblegum free?
Yes. The lesson library is free for everyone, because we believe everyone should be able to learn. It holds lessons that other learners asked Poppy for. A new custom lesson costs us real money to make, so your first one is free, and Bubblegum Pro gives you unlimited custom lessons.
The Cebuano lessons on this site are also free and need no account.
Sources
- U.S. Department of State, Foreign Language Training (FSI language categories)
- U.S. Department of State, FSI language categories (archived May 2018, with Tagalog in Category III)
- Wikipedia: Malayo-Polynesian languages (Indonesian, Malay, Tagalog and Cebuano)
- Wikipedia: Central Philippine languages (Tagalog and the Bisayan languages)
- Wikipedia: Cebuano language
- Wikipedia: Bisayan languages
- Wiktionary: kaon
