Bisaya Translator — English to Cebuano

What Is Bisaya?

Bisaya — also called Cebuano, Binisaya or Visayan — is an Austronesian language spoken by roughly 20 million people across the central and southern Philippines: Cebu, Bohol, Siquijor, Negros, Leyte, and much of Mindanao including Davao and Cagayan de Oro. It is one of the major languages of the Philippines and, by native-speaker count, rivals Tagalog itself. Its ISO 639-3 code is ceb.

The names are used interchangeably, and the differences are mostly about who is talking. In Cebu, people say Bisaya; linguists and international standards say Cebuano; official documents and older grammars use Visayan. All four names refer to the same language with the same words — a speaker from Davao and a speaker from Cebu understand each other without translation, though every island has its own local vocabulary and accent.

There are around 130 languages in the Philippines, and Bisaya is not a dialect of Tagalog but a sister language within the same Austronesian family — more distant from Tagalog than, say, Spanish is from Italian. That matters when you translate: a Tagalog phrase book will produce sentences a Bisaya speaker will find strange, and vice versa.

Bisaya Is Not Tagalog

This is the single most useful thing to know before you translate anything. Tagalog (the basis of the national language, Filipino) is the language of Manila and the surrounding regions. Bisaya is the language of the Visayas and Mindanao — and while the two share ancestry and quite a lot of vocabulary, everyday words differ sharply:

• "Delicious" — Tagalog masarap, Bisaya lami.
• "How much?" — Tagalog magkano, Bisaya pila or tagpila.
• "Where?" — Tagalog saan, Bisaya asa (or diin).
• "What?" — Tagalog ano, Bisaya unsa.
• "Please" — Tagalog uses pakiusap or no direct equivalent; Bisaya uses palihug constantly in daily speech.
• "We/us" — Tagalog tayo vs kami; Bisaya kita vs kami, with its own rules about whether the listener is included.

Getting this right is the difference between being understood and being politely stared at. A Bisaya speaker in Cebu or Davao will hear Tagalog as the language of Manila television — correct Filipino, wrong region. Use Bisaya phrases in the Visayas and Mindanao and the whole tenor of the conversation changes.

Bisaya Grammar Basics (So You Don't Sound Like A Machine)

The biggest trap in machine translation is assuming Bisaya works like English. It does not, in three specific ways:

• Bisaya has no tenses — it has aspect. Instead of past/present/future, verbs mark whether an action is finished or not: mo-/mag- for not-yet-done or habitual, nag- for in progress, mi-/na- for completed. "I ate" is mikaon ko; "I will eat" is mokaon ko; "I am eating" is nagkaon ko.
• Short pronouns come after the first word. The full forms — ako (I), ikaw (you), siya (he/she) — are for emphasis. In normal sentences you use the short forms ko, ka, niya placed after the first word: Wala ko kasabot ("I don't understand"), not "ako wala kasabot".
• There are two negatives. Dili negates future or habitual actions (dili ko mokaon = I won't eat / I don't eat). Wala negates completed or stative situations (wala ko kasabot = I don't understand). Using the wrong one is the most common beginner error.

Three more classic mistakes worth avoiding:

• Saying "dili ako kasabot" instead of wala ko kasabot — not understanding is a current state, so it takes wala.
• Saying "kaon na ako kaganina" instead of mikaon na ko — the completed marker mi- already carries "already".
• Saying "bigay" for "give" — that is Tagalog. The Bisaya word is hatag, and the imperative is hatagi: Palihug, hatagi ko ug tubig ("Please give me water").

For single words and short phrases, a dictionary like this one is reliable. For full sentences, use these patterns as a checklist: check the verb aspect, choose the right focus form, and put the short pronoun after the first word.

Essential Bisaya Phrases By Situation

• Greetings: Kumusta (hello / how are you) · Maayong buntag (good morning) · Maayong udto (good noon) · Maayong hapon (good afternoon) · Maayong gabii (good evening).
• Courtesy: Salamat (thank you) · Daghang salamat / Salamat kaayo (thank you very much) · Walay sapayan (you're welcome) · Palihug (please) · Pasayloa ko / Pasensya na (sorry).
• Introducing yourself: Ako si [name] (I am [name]) · Taga [place] ko (I'm from [place]) · Dili ko Bisaya (I'm not Bisaya) · Nakat-on ko og Binisaya (I'm learning Bisaya).
• Getting around: Asa ang [place]? (where is…?) · Palihug, adto ko sa [place] (please take me to…) · Pila ang pamasahe? (how much is the fare?) · Lugar lang (just drop me here) · Para! (stop here).
• Eating: Gigutom ko (I'm hungry) · Giuhaw ko (I'm thirsty) · Lami kaayo (very delicious) · Pila ni? (how much is this?).
• Emergencies and confusion: Tabang! (help!) · Wala ko kasabot (I don't understand) · Nawala ko (I'm lost) · Asa ang banyo? (where is the bathroom?).

Learn the greetings and the courtesy words first. In Bisaya-speaking regions, opening with Maayong buntag and closing with Salamat does more for you than grammatical perfection — the effort is what registers.

Bisaya In Baybayin

Here is where this page does something unusual. Baybayin was used across the archipelago, not only in Tagalog regions, and Bisaya-speaking areas wrote closely related variants of it. Because Baybayin writes sounds, any Bisaya word can be rendered in it — the script does not care which Philippine language you are speaking.

Type an English phrase above and the third box shows the Bisaya result written in Baybayin characters. Spell phonetically for the cleanest output: Bisaya words are nearly phonetic already, which is why they transliterate into Baybayin far better than English does.

The output uses the modern pamudpod (᜔) convention for final consonants, and it applies the three-vowel rule automatically — so o and u share one kudlit, and i and e share another, exactly as Baybayin was designed.

Want the long version of how the script works? Read Baybayin: The Philippine Script, or go straight to the Baybayin Translator for syllable-by-syllable breakdowns.

How Accurate Is This Translator?

Honestly: excellent for words and short everyday phrases, imperfect for long sentences. Our dictionary holds commonly used Bisaya vocabulary and the phrases that travellers, partners and heritage learners actually search for. Each entry is a real form used in Cebu, Bohol and Davao — not a machine guess.

Where it reaches its limits is grammar. Bisaya sentences need the right verb aspect and focus form, and word-for-word English-to-Bisaya substitution produces unnatural sentences. That is why the box leaves untranslated words in English rather than inventing a phrase: a visible gap is more useful than a confident error.

If you need a sentence to be perfect — a speech, a tattoo, a formal letter — have it checked by a native Bisaya speaker. For greetings, food, directions, family words and everyday courtesy, this page will get you understood across the Visayas and Mindanao.