Pepe Word Smith

Pepe Word Smith A community of learners who treat everyone with kindness and respect.
(8)

Feel free to ask or answer questions in the comments section, and let’s help one another! 😊

28/08/2025

YESTERDAY, I talked about Isabelle Daza’s speech which she delivered at her cousin’s wedding and how it left me speechless, and now, from one belle to another, let’s talk about Bela Padilla who is another one of my favorite Filipino speakers. And let me tell you why. In a recent interview, she sat down with MJ Felipe and talked about her showbiz journey, her life in London and finally deciding to come home to the Philippines. If there’s one thing about Bela, she’s masterful at the tenses, solid and consistent. When she was talking about things that happened in the past, she stayed in the past tense as if her life depended on it, which is a mark of a great speaker! At one point in the interview, she said, “When I was first discovered, I had no background in acting, I was a high school student, so I didn’t know what I could do yet. But I was very eager to learn, and I took the workshops very seriously. I would study on my own. I bought books. I would always request for workshops if I had challenging roles.” Oh! It was music to my ears! You see, this is what makes good speakers sound good. They use the right tenses. It’s simple, really! Try to catch Bela’s recent interview on YouTube, and enjoy watching while learning. Ciao bella!

27/08/2025

JUST the other day, I got the chance to catch Isabelle Daza’s speech which she gave at her cousin’s wedding 2 years ago on YouTube. Isabelle happens to be one of my favorite Filipino speakers, so I would always make it a point to watch her speeches whenever I got the chance. What makes Isabelle a great speaker which also goes for other great speakers is her masterful use of the tenses. This, on top of her having a great sense of humor which makes her speeches even more entertaining. She really is a joy to watch! In her speech, she said, “Jess would always be with me at the mall.” which was the correct use of “would” since she was talking about something that they did repeatedly in the past. And then seamlessly shifted to using the simple present tense and said, “We still do this to this day.” to describe something that happens repeatedly in the present. Another one of Isabelle’s strong points is her turn of phrase. At one point in the speech, she said they would “scurry off” after having too much free taste tests at an ice cream shop which was a nice way of saying they hurriedly walked away. She has a way with words. You should really go and see her in action and pick-up a thing or two, or three! Way to go, Isabelle!

26/08/2025

NOW is the perfect time to look back on what I wrote about Filipina tennis queen, Alex Eala, earlier this year. Here’s to writing more good news about her after this year’s US Open happening now!

“What Alex has done in the past week in the Miami Open in Florida was nothing short of spectacular! She fell short in the semifinals against her worthy American opponent, world number 5, Jessica Pegula, but still walked out the court like a winner! Waving her hands, blowing kisses to the crowd and flashing that beautiful bedimpled smile. Now, that’s charisma! Or should I say, rizz? She crawled her way into the semis with back-to-back-to-back wins against top ranked players, including world number 2, Iga Swiatek, quickly dispelling doubts around her performance being a flash in a pan. A flash in the pan describes something or someone who appears promising for a short time but isn’t able to sustain it, or “tsamba” in Tagalog. I have always believed she could make it big and have been following her career for a while, ever since she won the Juniors US Open in 2022. So, this shining moment in the Miami Open didn’t really come as a surprise to me. I knew it really was just a matter of time, and I couldn’t be any happier that it came this soon for our tennis queen! Obviously, Alex Eala is amazing on the court with her punishing groundstrokes, but she can also hold her ground off it during interviews, slicing through and pounding at each question with impressive eloquence and grammatical accuracy, showing maturity beyond her years. Best of all, her Tagalog’s not bad. Not bad at all. IYKYK. You do your country proud, Alex! Mabuhay ka!”

22/08/2025

WHEN you say, “fierce journalist”, someone who would come on the heels of Maria Ressa on my list is the marvelous Karmina Constantino. She made staying at home in the pandemic a lot less boring and exciting even with her style of commentary. Who would forget her iconic lines when she went toe to toe with men twice her size, like: “If you’re gonna evolve backwards, don’t bring the country down with you.” and “This journalist that you’re talking to right now, has never been nor ever will be paid by anyone to ask or not ask any questions.” She’s a savage! And her grammar is always on fleek, too! In case you missed it, Karmina came out with her very own podcast recently with KC After Hours. And I’ll be quick to say that you should manage your expectations and not get too excited because if you’re after the usual hard-hitting and sharp-tongued Karmina, she won’t be there. However, who will be there is an equally interesting side of her that you probably haven’t seen before. A more subdued, friendly, candid and unguarded Karmina that is. And from whom you may also pick-up grammar tips here and there like how I did, watching one of her recent podcasts. Karmina was ever so mindful of her tenses, making sure that her verbs were all aligned and were in the correct forms, she said: “Did you ever think that it was gonna happen to you?” You see, a common mistake that I would hear some people commit is how they would use “it’s” loosely, thinking that it was also the contraction of “it was” without realizing that “it’s” only stood for “it is” or “it has” and not “it was.” Well, Ms. Constantino surely didn’t miss that lesson at school, I see!

20/08/2025

LET’S talk about toxic traits. Mine is wanting to sleep early to have a good night’s rest but fighting off sleep as soon as it comes an hour after lying in bed and doom scrolling on my phone. It would get to the point where I would get so sleepy that I would drop my phone on my face, which would startle me so badly and reactivate my senses and make me go back to the start. How toxic is that, right? Formally, “bad” is not an adverb, it is an adjective and a noun. So, we shouldn’t use it to modify verbs, rather its adverb counterpart, “badly.” Hence, my statement, “startle me so badly.” Anyway, going back, this is something that I constantly work at and struggle with especially on days when I must wake-up before my body clock goes off, which is practically every day. Thankfully, I’m okay with having at least 6 hours of sleep although I try to extend it to 7 or sometimes 8 whenever I can. Here’s to us always having a good night’s sleep!

18/08/2025

I’M the type of person who feeds his emotions with music. If I’m happy, then I listen to upbeat music. If I’m feeling sad, then I listen to sentimental music. While I’m not necessarily in a sentimental mood today, one of my latest favorite songs, I thought was too beautiful not to share. The song is You’re Gonna Live Forever in Me by the talented John Mayer. John Mayer has that uncanny ability to write lyrics that seep through my veins and instantly put me in a particular mood. Their sense of realness is incredible. What a gift! Another song of his had the same effect on me after hearing a contestant sing it live on American Idol. The song was called Daughters. Powerful lyrics. I leave you with an excerpt from my current favorite song where John Mayer utilized a literary device very effectively, rhyme. Definitely music to my ears! And I hope to yours too.

A great big bang and dinosaurs.
Fiery raining meteors.
It all ends unfortunately.
But you’re gonna live forever in me.
I guarantee.
Just wait and see.

IN Tagalog, they say, “Huwag kang matakot sa multo, matakot ka sa tao.” And this is exactly how I would describe the mov...
16/08/2025

IN Tagalog, they say, “Huwag kang matakot sa multo, matakot ka sa tao.” And this is exactly how I would describe the movie Weapons in a sentence. It’s been a while since I put my hands together as soon as the credits went on after seeing a movie, which I love because it only meant I surely got my money’s worth! And we all know it’s surely not cheap to see a movie nowadays. It was that good! By the way, seeing a movie is different from watching one. We “see” a movie in a cinema and “watch” it in the comfort of our homes or anyone’s house for that matter. If you’re looking for something to do over the weekend, go and see Weapons in your nearest cinemas. I’m a sucker for horror movies, I know I may have shared before. I’ve set my standards high because I’ve seen them all. I have a discerning taste when it comes to horror movies, if I may say so myself. Weapons had all the elements that made a great horror movie for me. A spooky premise, realistic ghosts (elements that look like actual people) spiced up by the bizarre excitement that we get out of zombie movies. It had jump scare moments and a lot of those that made you squint your eyes, watch in between your fingers and constantly convince yourself that it was all a show in the hopes of managing your heartrate. Weapons crept its way to the top of my list! 10 out of 10!

15/08/2025

I started with my content creation journey on TikTok during the pandemic in 2020. So, you can say I have been in the “industry” for 5 years now. As I slowly but surely grew my following on TikTok and just last year, also on Instagram and Facebook, I have noticed that there have been more and more people who would recognize and say hello to me in the most random places, like malls, elevators, churches, the airport and all other places you can think of, with some even taking the extra mile and request to have their pictures taken with me. And I would always oblige with a smile, of course! Because who was I not to? I would have to admit that I flatter myself every time, but then also remind myself to take a slice of my humble pie as soon as I’ve come back down to earth a few seconds after. Remember, and I’m talking to myself too, a person’s follower base does not make him better than anyone. Most commonly, they would say: “Hello! I’m following you on TikTok!” or “I’m seeing you on Instagram!” both of which are in the present continuous tense which are not the right tense to use in these situations. When something is happening regularly or is the general truth, like following or seeing someone on his social media accounts, we must use the simple present form. So, we say: “Hello! I follow you on TikTok!” or “I see you on Instagram!” Got it? Sorry na, guys! Labyu!

14/08/2025

I surely got my creative side from my father. And so did my favorite sister, Joy. If you’ve been following this blog, you’d know that Joy was one of my early influences in terms of being strict with my grammar. Anyway, my father was an architect while Joy took up Interior Design in college. They would have made a good pair had my father lived long enough and had Joy pursued Interior Design after college. I guess fate had other plans. I grew up around drafting tables, pencils (the fancy ones), tech pens, t-squares, blueprints, watercolors, illustration boards, name it, they had it. Watching Joy slave over her thesis plates for a whole school year was a core memory. I can even remember what some of her plates looked like and was so amazed at how she was able to come up with such masterpieces. She was as good with drawing as she was with her grammar, I must say! And this is why I knew early on that the main room in a house is called the “master” bedroom and not the “master’s” bedroom. That’s not to say that it belongs to the “master” of the house, rather the biggest one in it. Well, except if you’re a robot dressed in a maid’s uniform and answer to the name Irona!

13/08/2025

GROWING up in the 90s was a blast! I could easily say it was the best time of my life aside from now that I have grown into my own skin, found the love of my life and am finally doing what I love for a living, including writing this blog and helping people achieve their communications goals as an English coach (shameless plugging right there). Going back to the 90s, it was the golden age of Philippine TV for me. TV was the one thing I could not live without if you would ask me back then. The remote control was to me what my phone is today, it was the first thing I held shortly after opening my eyes or sometimes even with my eyes closed after waking up from my sleep. And in case you were wondering, I have outgrown this attachment to the TV after ABS-CBN was shut down one dark night in 2020 in the advent of the pandemic. Well, the pandemic has made me realize so much more aside from knowing that I can live without the TV, that’s for sure! Going back to my story, I would spend so many hours watching TV to the point that I created a routine. I would switch between Batibot and Sesame Street in the morning, Eat Bulaga or whatever was on the other channels during lunch, watch cartoons in the afternoon shortly after the “sleeper” shows had been aired (it makes me yawn just thinking about them), and then my regular weekly shows on channel 2. Abangan ang Susunod na Kabanata on Mondays, Palibhasa Lalaki on Tuesdays, Kaya ni Mister, Kaya ni Misis on Wednesday and Home Along Da Riles on Thursdays, I forget what was on during Fridays, until it was time to sleep when The World Tonight started airing at around 10:30PM. And it would go on until the weekend, a string of cartoons in the morning, Baywatch and McGyver at night and a bunch of Pinoy horror series at night. I had the best time of my life! And this was how I came to know that I was more of a creature of habit than anything else. That I loved having a routine than going with the flow. I love having structure and order in my life. A “creature of habit” is an idiom that refers to a person who is exactly like how I described myself. And idioms help us enhance our speech. I’m a sucker for idioms, so you can be sure to see them pop-up here regularly and learn more about them. I was on the fence about whether to end this with one or not but decided I’d save it for next time. Or was that an idiom?

12/08/2025

TO most people, core memories are those of happy times. But to me, besides happy moments, a lot of my core memories are also those of either grammar “eureka” moments aka those wonderful moments of discovery or awkward moments of people saying ungrammatical statements. Like this one time in college, I was having a serious conversation with one of my good friends. And when I say serious, it was surely about getting tickets for a UAAP basketball finals game. “Oh no! What if we run out of tickets?”, I said. “Don’t say that! God forbids!”, she exclaimed. I was correcting her in my head, hoping that she’d come to her senses soon. But she didn’t. And that was that. I just hope she was able to pick it up along the way and correct herself. God forbid she took it all the way to corporate! Statements that are in the form of commands, instructions or advice are used in the imperative mood, and the verbs assume their base forms which explains why we say, “God forbid” and not “God forbids”, in such cases. Got it?

11/08/2025

IN the Philippines, when we say international actress, I would say 99.99% of Filipinos would automatically think about Lea Salonga. This is so true that we might as well tag them as synonyms. But this is not about Lea, although I will surely get to her some other time. It’s about her contemporary who made the international headlines not so long ago for bagging a Golden Globe nomination for her riveting portrayal of a Filipina overseas worker who was stranded on an island. Yes, and then you think of Dolly De Leon. I caught her (and boy am I glad I did) in a not so recent interview with, coincidentally, Lea Salonga which was part of the promotions for a play they were alternating for, Request sa Radyo, which sadly, I missed. I never realized Dolly De Leon had such a good turn of phrase. And my previous sentence was exactly why I thought so. Notice how I used the past tense even while Dolly having a good turn of phrase remains to be true in the present? I said “she had a good turn of phrase” and not “she has a good turn of phrase.” This is because I started my statement in the past tense with “I never realized.” And Dolly did this consistently throughout the interview, it was a joy to watch! You see, non-native English speakers who are particular about their tenses and know exactly when to use the past tense for statements that remain true in the present are hard to come by these days and Dolly De Leon shows us how it’s done! Bravo!

Address

Quezon City

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Pepe Word Smith posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Pepe Word Smith:

Shortcuts

Share

Category