Tagalog to Bisaya Translation — Free Cebuano Translator

No — Tagalog and Bisaya (Cebuano) are two separate Philippine languages. Both belong to the Austronesian family but they are not mutually intelligible: a Tagalog speaker cannot understand a Bisaya speaker and vice versa without learning the other language. Tagalog is the basis of Filipino (the national language, spoken mainly in Luzon). Bisaya is the most widely spoken language in the Visayas and Mindanao. According to the 2020 PSA Census, Bisaya/Cebuano has 24.2 million native speakers — making it the language with the second-largest speaker population in the Philippines.

Tagalog and Bisaya share many Spanish-derived loanwords (salamat, pamilya, paaralan) and some native Austronesian roots (anak, isda, tubig). However, core everyday vocabulary often differs significantly: 'no' is 'hindi' in Tagalog but 'dili' in Bisaya; 'where' is 'saan' vs 'asa'; 'delicious' is 'masarap' vs 'lami'; 'sibling' is 'kapatid' vs 'igsoon'. Numbers also differ completely — Tagalog uses isa/dalawa/tatlo while Bisaya uses usa/duha/tulo.

'Mahal kita' in Tagalog translates to 'Gihigugma ko ikaw' in Bisaya — literally 'I love you' with object-focus verb 'gihigugma' (gi- prefix = completed/stative action), 'ko' (short form of 'I'), and 'ikaw' (you). An alternative is 'Nahigugma ko nimo' (I have feelings of love for you). Note: 'mahal' in Bisaya means 'expensive', not 'love' — so never say 'Mahal kita' to a Bisaya speaker expecting a romantic response.

'Yes' in Bisaya is 'Oo' (same as Tagalog). 'No' in Bisaya is 'Dili' — not 'Hindi' (Tagalog). Dili is used to negate adjectives, future actions, and preferences: 'Dili ko mokaon' (I won't eat). For completed actions or absence, Bisaya uses 'Wala': 'Wala ko kaon' (I didn't eat), 'Wala siya diri' (She's not here). Tagalog uses 'hindi' for both contexts.

Yes — knowing Tagalog gives a meaningful head start in Bisaya. Both languages share the Philippine focus/voice system (actor focus, object focus, location focus), aspect-based verb conjugation (not tense-based), and the same Austronesian sentence structure (verb-initial word order). The main adjustments are: new vocabulary for most everyday words, different aspect markers (mo-/nag-/mi- in Bisaya vs mag-/nag-/nag- in Tagalog), and slightly different pronoun forms. Most Tagalog speakers learn functional Bisaya significantly faster than English speakers do.

This page covers 100+ direct Tagalog-to-Bisaya word pairs for the most common vocabulary categories (greetings, family, food, questions, numbers, emotions). For a broader Bisaya dictionary covering 775+ entries with pronunciation and example sentences, use the full Bisaya-to-English dictionary — all entries are searchable in Bisaya or English.