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Bikol to Cebuano Translation

Translate Bikol to Cebuano instantly, then check the result against a 396-entry phrasebook compiled by hand rather than generated by the tool.

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Ctrl + Enter to translate · Ctrl + Shift + S to swap. Output is machine-generated — check anything that matters.

Bikol phrases with Cebuano translations

396 entries across 24 categories, compiled from published references rather than generated by the tool above. This set is compiled from general reference and is awaiting confirmation from native speakers, which is why each entry carries a pending-review marker.

BikolCebuanoEnglish
Marhay na agaMaayong buntagGood morning
Marhay na haponMaayong haponGood afternoon
Marhay na banggiMaayong gabiiGood evening
Marhay na aldawMaayong adlawGood day
Kumusta ka?Kumusta ka?How are you?
Marhay manMaayo raI'm fine
PaaramAyo-ayoGoodbye
SalamatSalamatThank you
Dakulang salamatDaghang salamatThank you very much
Daing ano manWalay sapayanYou're welcome
All 396 phrases

How Bikol and Cebuano differ

Bikol and Cebuano both belong to the Central Philippine group of Austronesian, but to different subgroups within it — Bikol to Bikol, Cebuano to Bisayan. They share sentence structure and a layer of Spanish-era vocabulary; the everyday words are their own.

Partly, at the level of isolated words. Both are Central Philippine, and Bikol shares some vocabulary with the Bisayan group that Tagalog does not — but the everyday core is different, and Bikol's own words (marhay, harong, sira for fish) do not carry over.

Bikol is a dialect cluster rather than one uniform language. Standard Central Bikol (Naga) is what machine translation targets; Rinconada, Albay and Masbate forms are frequently passed through untouched. Cebuano is the largest Bisayan language and the lingua franca of most of Mindanao, so a great deal of what is loosely called 'Bisaya' online is Cebuano specifically.

Words that exist in both languages and mean different things

These are where confident readers get caught, and where the translator above is least reliable — a word it does not recognise is passed through unchanged, which can land in the other language as a real word with an unrelated meaning.

  • sira

    Bikol: Fish.

    Cebuano: Broken, spoiled, ruined.

  • salog

    Bikol: A river.

    Cebuano: A floor.

Machine translation across Philippine languages fails in patterns rather than at random. We wrote up what those patterns are and why they happen, measured against Ilocano.

How accurate is it?

Neither Bikol nor Cebuano is a well-resourced language, and there is very little direct training data between them. The engine translates through English internally, so every result here is two translations stacked on top of each other, and the errors of the first are carried into the second.

We ran all 280 translatable entries in this phrasebook through the translator above and compared each against the human-written Cebuano. It matched or came close 59.6% of the time.

The reverse direction is not equivalent. Bikol → Cebuano scored 59.6% and Cebuano → Bikol scored 53.6% — a gap of 6 points on the same phrase set, so this direction is the one to trust more.

Full results, category by category

Common questions

Is Bikol the same as Cebuano?
Bikol and Cebuano both belong to the Central Philippine group of Austronesian, but to different subgroups within it — Bikol to Bikol, Cebuano to Bisayan. They share sentence structure and a layer of Spanish-era vocabulary; the everyday words are their own.
Can a Bikol speaker understand Cebuano?
Partly, at the level of isolated words. Both are Central Philippine, and Bikol shares some vocabulary with the Bisayan group that Tagalog does not — but the everyday core is different, and Bikol's own words (marhay, harong, sira for fish) do not carry over.
How accurate is Bikol to Cebuano translation?
We measured it rather than guessing. Running all 280 translatable entries in our Bikol–Cebuano phrasebook through this tool, the machine output matched or closely matched the human-written Cebuano 59.6% of the time. It is weakest on everyday verbs (0%) and strongest on health & emergency (92%). The direction matters too: Cebuano → Bikol scored 53.6%, a gap of 6 points. Treat it as a helpful draft, not a finished translation.
Why did the translation come back exactly the same as what I typed?
Usually because the engine did not recognise the word and echoed your input rather than failing visibly. But check before assuming it is broken: 118 of the entries in our Bikol–Cebuano phrase data are genuinely spelled the same in both languages, including Kumusta ka? (how are you?), Salamat (thank you), Tulo (three), Lima (five). Unchanged output is not automatically wrong for this pair.
Which Bikol words mean something different in Cebuano?
sira — Fish in Bikol, broken, spoiled, ruined in Cebuano; salog — A river in Bikol, a floor in Cebuano. We document 2 of these for this pair. They are where the translator is least reliable, because a word it does not recognise is passed through unchanged and can land in the other language as a real word with an unrelated meaning.
How many people speak Bikol?
Bikol is spoken mainly in Camarines Sur, Albay, Sorsogon, Camarines Norte. The 2020 census reports ethnicity rather than a separate speaker count for it, so we do not publish a speaker figure we cannot source. Bikol is a dialect cluster. Machine translation targets Central Bikol (Naga) and handles Rinconada, Albay and Masbate varieties poorly. Figures elsewhere claiming far larger totals for these languages are generally not supported by census data.
Can I translate Cebuano to Bikol as well?
Yes — use the Cebuano to Bikol page, or press the swap button above the text box. We measured both: Bikol → Cebuano scored 59.6% and Cebuano → Bikol scored 53.6%. That is a real gap, so this direction is the more reliable of the two.
Is it free, and are there limits?
It is free with no account required. A single translation is capped at 5,000 characters, and there is a rate limit to keep the service available for everyone. There is no limit on how many translations you can do overall.

Related translators

Who maintains this

Compiled and maintained by John Smith. Last checked .

I compile Philippine-language phrase data from published references, check it against multiple sources, and measure the machine translation on this site rather than making claims about it. I am not a linguist. Entries I have not been able to confirm are marked as pending review rather than presented as verified.

No native Bikol speaker has reviewed this data yet. 396 phrasebook entries are marked pending review. See the phrasebook and its sources.

Translations are produced by a general-purpose machine translation engine and are not a substitute for a professional translator.