Abakada – Filipino Alphabet

Ready to learn the Filipino alphabet with us? We have a fun and special challenge to help you learn more Filipino vocabulary, more about food, culture, and geography using each letter sound of the original Filipino alphabet, known as Abakada.

In collaboration with Filipino children’s book author, Joy Francisco (@littleyellowjeepney), and Filipino food vlogger, Jeanelle Castro (@Jeanelleats), we shared words and phrases focusing on one letter of the Abakada each week. The Instagram challenge ran from the week of November 10, 2019 and ran for 20 weeks (ending the last week of March 2020).

It was an enriching experience learning from one another, and we looked forward to seeing the participation each week. We applaud those of you who learned the words for yourselves, shared the vocabulary with family and friends, commented on our posts with words you know that go along with that week’s featured letter, or who shared relevant content on your social media during each week’s #AbakadaChallenge.

Although the “live” portion of the challenge is now over, feel free to go back to our Instagram profiles to review the past Abakada-related posts. I also saved the posts in our Story Highlights.

Filipino food-related words- @Jeanelleats

Tagalog phrases – @filamlearners

Filipino culture words – @littleyellowjeepney

To go along with the challenge, I made a printable booklet for you (and/or your kids) to write down or draw the words that we share each week and any additional words you come up with or find from other resources. Feel free to take a picture of your completed pages each week or after the whole challenge and share it with us by using the hashtag #abakadachallenge or tagging @filamlearners @littleyellowjeepney and @jeanelleats so we can see all of the amazing words you are learning.

We also created a lyric sheet of the “Abakada Song” with alphabet cards to cut out and practice putting in order. Download the activity below and watch the video underneath for the song.