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The Little Prince By Antoine De Saint-Exupéry Is Now Available In Chabacano!

While Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince) written by Antoine De Saint-Exupéry in 1943 now has over 300 translations in different languages worldwide and is now considered the world’s most translated book (not counting religious works), there have been surprisingly only two translations of his book in the Philippines (Filipino and Bicol). El Diutay Principe is only the third edition featuring a Philippine language. The Little Prince is a classic French novella about a pilot who gets stranded in the desert after a plane crash and encounters a little fellow who asks him to draw a sheep for him. Through the course of their meeting, the pilot rediscovers the true meaning of life and what people should value the most. When I came across the book in 2013, I found that I could relate very well to the negative image given to “growing up” in the book. When the idea to translate the book into my mother tongue was presented to me, I didn’t think twice. I thought, ‘a lot of people my ...
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The Chabacano Expression Hace Preciso


One of the expressions that I really like in Chabacano is hace preciso. It means to make an effort to do something. Here are some sentences I found in Facebook (which I have edited to conform with the current orthography prescribed by the local government of Zamboanga city) using the expression hace preciso.

Bueno pa si Mayor Beng. Ta hace preciso con el problema de blackout.

Espera pa gayod kamo tumba 'se? Hace preciso para compone con ese kay cuanto veces ya 'se ya hace reclamo pero no hay accion.

No puede kita para con el progreso y bonito siempre tiene progreso el ciudad para el bien de todo. El de mio lang, no debe kita olvida el de aton Chabacano. Hace siempre preciso de conversa siempre este con orgullo.

Ancho el de amon sementera aqui. Favor ya hace preciso buga maya.

Por que no hay mas ya tambien kame agua aqui na zone 8? More than 24 hours ya no hay. Favor era hace preciso pone agua kay ta paga man kame on time!

There are other expressions which we use in Chabacano to say the same thing. For example, I have heard someone use larga fuerza. However, this connotes a heavier degree of urgency. 

In recent times, people have been using hace esfuerzo which is a literal translation of the English expression to make an effort.

While the term preciso is definitely Spanish, as far as I know, no such expression exists in Spanish. So where does this Chabacano expression come from? 

One of the things that I found out when I was trying to learn Spanish was that the word preciso does not only mean precise in that language. Preciso can also mean necessary in Spanish so it is possible that this is where this very Chabacano expression evolved from.
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