I was already pregnant when my husband first asked me, “Ano’ng gusto mong itawag ni baby sa’yo?” Without any trace of hesitation in my voice, I replied, “Nanay.” This one-word response is more than just a choice of name or endearment; it was a commitment to raise our child in a very Filipino home.

I do want our daughter to be good in English too, but my husband and I chose a route we felt most at home with: we wanted her to be fluent in Filipino first.

Let me share with you our reasons.

I was raised in Cavite and my husband was raised in Quezon Province, that deciding on our child’s first language was a no-brainer for us. We want to share with her the culture we grew up in through the Filipino language, and we hope she continues this when it’s her time to raise kids of her own.

Our relatives reside in Batangas and in Quezon Province, and we want our daughter to be able to identify and connect with her lolas, lolos, titas, titos, and cousins using a language she speaks and understands.

Being an English teacher for a long time helped frame my perspective on having Filipino as my child’s first language. Whenever my students struggle to express themselves in English, I do encourage them to say what they want to say in Filipino first. Believe it or not, many of them also find it hard to do this.

There’s nothing wrong with exposing children to both English and Filipino at an early age. In fact, they’ll be able to absorb the languages faster. I think what’s missing in some Filipino homes is the intention to make one language the native tongue or first language, making it the starting point or reference of learning the second one. In other words, kids know words and expressions from both languages but are unable to express themselves well with either of them.

I always remind my students that not all Filipino words and expressions have a direct translation in English. It pays to know what words from your native tongue entirely capture your mind and heart, so you can at least get close to the meaning you wish to say using a second language.

More and more Filipino students compare reading Filipino texts to climbing a steep hill, that studying Ibong Adarna, Florante at Laura, Noli Me Tangere, and El Filibusterismo feel to them like taking a foreign language class.

I do get it that there are differences in conversational and formal written Filipino, but if conversational Filipino is absent in the child’s vocabulary in the first place, then decoding the latter will be all the more difficult. This is why my husband and I make an effort to incorporate both Filipino and English in our storytelling time. We use picture books to describe actions in Filipino and English. As a result, our daughter learned to respond to prompts like “Ano ito?” and “What’s this?” in the same manner.

Learning is only possible with understanding, and understanding is fostered by consistent practice – which brings me to my next point.

We can always argue that our kids can learn Filipino in school, and that their Filipino subject teachers are responsible for teaching them the language. Yes, vocabulary and sentence structure can be taught in school, but context and appropriacy of using the combination of words can only be learned through practice.

Being intentional with having our daughter learn Filipino first puts us, her parents, accountable for her language learning, that we wouldn’t resort to pointing fingers when she encounters difficulty in communicating in school and beyond.

I studied high school abroad and I also worked there for some time. The beautiful Filipino word “kabayan” and the conversations exchanged in Filipino (and other Philippine languages) are indelible marks of heritage that connects Filipinos to their home no matter where they are in the world.

There’s something so heartfelt about us speaking the same language at home, in school, and in the workplace, because it’s how we meet eye to eye. It’s one of the ways we build trust and respect.

Here at home, I make sure that whenever there’s something my daughter does that I am not happy with, I say, “Malungkot si Nanay.” Although the word sad can also represent my feelings to an extent, I don’t feel like it captures my feeling the way the word malungkot does. There’s something heavy and deep about the Filipino counterpart that bares how I truly feel – and I believe that communicating this way is a building block of a strong and healthy relationship.

I always believe that kids must know how to write and speak well in English in today’s world. In the same breath, I also believe that nothing takes precedence over communicating well in Filipino, more so because my child is here in the Philippines. Our native tongue is rich and beautiful, and we hope our daughter appreciates it and uses it to make sense of the world as much as we do.