How many Tagalog words come from Spanish?

Estimates put roughly a fifth of everyday Tagalog vocabulary at Spanish origin, the result of more than three centuries of Spanish rule. It is by far the largest single source of loanwords in the language.

How does the tool detect a loanword?

It matches each word against a curated dictionary of well-documented Spanish loanwords in Tagalog, including Filipinised spellings such as kuwarto from cuarto and silya from silla. It does not guess from spelling alone.

Why are some spellings changed from Spanish?

Tagalog respelt many Spanish words phonetically, so cuchara became kutsara and ventana became bintana. The tool stores these Filipinised forms so it can match them in real text.

Does it detect Spanish numbers and days?

Yes. Many Tagalog speakers use Spanish-derived numbers (uno, dos, tres) and the days and months, several of which appear in the dictionary.

Does my text leave the browser?

No. The text is matched against the built-in list locally. Nothing is uploaded or stored.

Tagalog Spanish Loanword Detector

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When Spain governed the Philippines for over three centuries, it left a permanent mark on the language. Today roughly a fifth of everyday Tagalog vocabulary is Spanish in origin — from household objects like mesa (table) and silya (chair) to verbs like kumain and time words like the days and months. This tool scans your Tagalog or Filipino text and highlights those Spanish loanwords, showing the likely Spanish source for each.

How it works

The detector tokenises your text and looks each word up (case-insensitively) in a curated dictionary of documented Spanish loanwords. Crucially, the dictionary stores the Filipinised spellings that Tagalog actually uses, because many borrowings were respelt phonetically:

silya   ← silla (chair)      mesa     ← mesa (table)
bintana ← ventana (window)   kutsara  ← cuchara (spoon)
kuwarto ← cuarto (room)      relos    ← reloj (watch)
sapatos ← zapatos (shoes)    eskwela  ← escuela (school)

Each detected word is reported with its Spanish source and how often it appears, so you can see how heavily a passage leans on Spanish-derived vocabulary.

Tips and example

Paste May mesa at silya sa kuwarto and the tool flags mesa (← mesa), silya (← silla) and kuwarto (← cuarto), while leaving the native Tagalog words may, at and sa alone.

Because Tagalog absorbed Spanish so thoroughly, a high count here is completely normal — these words are full members of the language, not foreign intrusions. Use the tool to study borrowing patterns, build vocabulary lists, or trace the Spanish roots of words you use every day. The dictionary focuses on common, well-attested loans, so rarer or very modern borrowings may not appear.