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Cebuano to Bikol Translation

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

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Cebuano phrases with Bikol 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.

CebuanoBikolEnglish
Maayong buntagMarhay na agaGood morning
Maayong haponMarhay na haponGood afternoon
Maayong gabiiMarhay na banggiGood evening
Maayong adlawMarhay na aldawGood day
Kumusta ka?Kumusta ka?How are you?
Maayo raMarhay manI'm fine
Ayo-ayoPaaramGoodbye
SalamatSalamatThank you
Daghang salamatDakulang salamatThank you very much
Walay sapayanDaing ano manYou're welcome
All 396 phrases

How Cebuano and Bikol differ

Cebuano and Bikol both belong to the Central Philippine group of Austronesian, but to different subgroups within it — Cebuano to Bisayan, Bikol to Bikol. 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.

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. 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.

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

    Cebuano: Broken, spoiled, ruined.

    Bikol: Fish.

  • salog

    Cebuano: A floor.

    Bikol: A river.

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 Cebuano nor Bikol 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 Bikol. It matched or came close 53.6% of the time.

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

Full results, category by category

Common questions

Is Cebuano the same as Bikol?
Cebuano and Bikol both belong to the Central Philippine group of Austronesian, but to different subgroups within it — Cebuano to Bisayan, Bikol to Bikol. They share sentence structure and a layer of Spanish-era vocabulary; the everyday words are their own.
Can a Cebuano speaker understand Bikol?
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 Cebuano to Bikol translation?
We measured it rather than guessing. Running all 280 translatable entries in our Cebuano–Bikol phrasebook through this tool, the machine output matched or closely matched the human-written Bikol 53.6% of the time. It is weakest on somewhere to stay (17%) and strongest on the body (92%). The direction matters too: Bikol → Cebuano scored 59.6%, 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 Cebuano–Bikol 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 Cebuano words mean something different in Bikol?
sira — Broken, spoiled, ruined in Cebuano, fish in Bikol; salog — A floor in Cebuano, a river in Bikol. 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 Cebuano?
The 2020 Philippine census recorded Cebuano as the language generally spoken at home in about 1.72 million households, and 8.0% of the household population identified as ethnically Cebuano. PSA counts 'Cebuano' and 'Bisaya/Binisaya' as separate census categories, so the true Cebuano-speaking total is higher than the Cebuano row alone. Figures elsewhere claiming far larger totals for these languages are generally not supported by census data.
Can I translate Bikol to Cebuano as well?
Yes — use the Bikol to Cebuano page, or press the swap button above the text box. We measured both: Cebuano → Bikol scored 53.6% and Bikol → Cebuano scored 59.6%. That is a real gap, so the reverse direction is actually 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 Cebuano 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.