Similarities:
Words. Many words in the Tagalog language are borrowed from the Spanish language, specifically Mexican Spanish as supposed to Castillian Spanish. Some words are kotsye (coche), kabayo (caballo) and bintana (ventana).
Phonetics. Tagalog has inherited the pronunciation of the letter ‘j’ as ‘h’ and can be seen as how some spellings have been altered to show that. Garaje became garahe and Jesús became Hesus.
Possession. This may be coincidental, this may be something Tagalog inherited from Spanish. Tagalog uses the ‘ng’ connector to state possession of an object. For example, The boy’s ball.
In Tagalog - Bola ng bata.
In Spanish - La bola del niño.
Again, this could be coincidental.
Differences
Grammar. I have mentioned that there are similarities in how possession is shown but that is where it ends. Spanish uses the SVO word order as the case for any Indo-European language. Tagalog, being an Austronesian language, uses the VSO order and sometimes, SVO. The verb conjugation is also very different. In Spanish, there is conjugation for each pronoun, each tense. Tagalog on the other hand has a single conjugation for all pronouns but there is conjugation for different tenses, and to some extent, the depth of meaning that is desired. Nouns are also easily turned into verbs in Tagalog while that is not the case in Spanish, due to the existence of verb groups.
Words. There are many loanwords in Tagalog that is of Spanish origin but it is not mutually intelligible. The difference in verb system, sentence order, and the pretty rare usage of Spanish loanwords in some context makes it nearly impossible to understand one another unless one is exposed to both languages. Diction is also pretty different between both languages, both are spoken at a relatively fast pace but Spanish seems to have more intonation that makes it sound dynamic, melodic, or just plain elated. Tagalog on the other hand sounds like you’re bartering at some wet market.
