Tagalog Long Vowels (Stress) and Glottal Stops
Note: For ease and clarity, we use underlines and /’/ instead of diacritical marks (accents) to indicate pronunciation.
Native Tagalog words are generally pronounced as they are spelled. * The only things that are not represented in spelling are: (1) long vowels, and (2) glottal stops [IPA symbol: ʔ] at the end of words.
An example of a glottal stop found in English is the sound represented by the hyphen in uh-oh!
* Commonly-used exceptions to this are ng and mga, which are pronounced as “nang” and “manga,” respectively.
Subtopics
- Long vowels (stress)
- Optional long vowels
- Final glottal stops
- Optional glottal stops
- Optional final /h/ sound
- Summary of pronunciation symbols used
- Spelling system using diacritical marks
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See notes on Terminology and Pronunciation Marks
This grammar guide is part of the Learning Tagalog Course.
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From Essential Tagalog Grammar: A Reference for Learners of Tagalog, Second Edition
By Fiona De Vos
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