I have a Bisayan (dialect) book of poetry; one page is in Bisayan and the page adjacent to it is in Tagalog (official language). I'm not proficient in both languages but every day or every other day I read out loud a page in Bisayan and its Tagalog equivalent. I only know bits and pieces of each language but I love the sound, in this case the sounds I make reading the poems out loud, even though my accents are probably horrendously bad. The language of the poetry is so deep, which is another stumbling block. I get excited just recognizing one word's meaning at a time. It's like when I see Spanish billboards or spanish handouts, but even less so because I am more apt to understand the written Spanish phrases that I can find in my environment versus the depth of this nearly undecipherable poetry that I am trying to understand. My sucky spanish (un)skills are better than my knowledge (working or otherwise) of the language of my forbears!

I read a phrase in Bisayan, if I am lucky I can understand one word. If I am very lucky, I can understand two.

I read the same phrase in Tagalog, and if I am lucky I can understand another word which is a different word from the Bisayan word and which deepens or actually just begins a concept of what that phrase is about.

Rarely, though it happens, I can get four words, two in Bisaya, two in Tagalog, the Tagalog different from the Bisayan.

Very very rarely I can understand an entire phrase! And this makes me really happy.

I want to be articulate again, too, but I just mean that in the common sense and not relating to any languages I am trying to understand.

But applied linguistics sure is fun.