What Pinoys really are saying when you play Dota 2 with them

Filipino players in Dota 2 have earned themselves a reputation for swearing a lot, playing badly, and flat-out refusing to type or speak in English. It’s come to a point where anything that isn’t English or Chinese in the Southeast Asian servers is almost automatically dismissed as Tagalog. It’s annoying, of course, and embarrassing for other Pinoys who actually speak in English to communicate with their team.

(See: 7 kinds of players on the Dota 2 SEA server)

Now I won’t say that Pinoys don’t trash-talk or don’t swear, but here’s something to ponder on: they don’t do it all the time. Oftentimes, it’s just “Pinoys not speaking in English” as opposed to “Pinoys trash-talking in a language other than English”. So here are some Tagalog expressions and in-game language for your reference. The goal isn’t to teach you the language, but it might lessen the rage if you knew they aren’t trash-talking. We even added some in-game terms to help with gameplay communication (somehow).

h3>Swear words and general slang

h3>

• Tangina/Tangina mo

  – A swear word, which literally means “your mother is a whore”

• Bobo/Tanga/Gago/Engot

  – Stupid

• Puta/Pucha