Filipino is spoken by over 82 million people, primarily in the Philippines. It is based on Tagalog and enriched with vocabulary from Spanish, English, and native dialects.
Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia) is the official language of Indonesia and is spoken by over 200 million people. Like Filipino, it is part of the Austronesian language family, and both share similar grammatical structures and vocabulary roots.
Both languages generally follow a subject-verb-object (SVO) word order. This shared structure makes learning one easier for speakers of the other.
Filipino and Indonesian both use the Latin alphabet. Indonesian spelling is very phonetic and regular, while Filipino includes words from multiple sources with variable orthography.
Common cultural values between the Philippines and Indonesia include strong family ties, religious diversity, communal festivals, and respect for elders. Formal speech in Indonesian often includes terms like "Bapak" or "Ibu", similar in function to Filipino's "po" and "opo".