Teaching Afrikaans

[OomStruisbaai]

This thread is dedicated to anyone who have questions about our culture, rugby , swear words or anything afrikaans. Go for it.

[Tichtheid]

Good idea I like languages.

Would a Dutch speaker and Afrikaans speaker be able to hold a conversation?

[OomStruisbaai]

Good idea I like languages.

Would a Dutch speaker and Afrikaans speaker be able to hold a conversation?

Yes. My global colleague is Dutch. He understand my Afrikaans. However Poes in Afrikaans and Dutch is something totally different

[salanya]

Good idea I like languages.

Would a Dutch speaker and Afrikaans speaker be able to hold a conversation?

Yes. My global colleague is Dutch. He understand my Afrikaans. However Poes in Afrikaans and Dutch is something totally different

Are you sure? Poes can have different meanings in Dutch too ..

[Slick]

Nice idea

But I only have rude and sarcastic comments in my head at the moment so I’ll pop by later

[OomStruisbaai]

Good idea I like languages.

Would a Dutch speaker and Afrikaans speaker be able to hold a conversation?

Yes. My global colleague is Dutch. He understand my Afrikaans. However Poes in Afrikaans and Dutch is something totally different

Are you sure? Poes can have different meanings in Dutch too ..

Thought it mean cat in Dutch? In Afrikaans it means that mouse that has been chop with an axe.

[salanya]

Yes. My global colleague is Dutch. He understand my Afrikaans. However Poes in Afrikaans and Dutch is something totally different

Are you sure? Poes can have different meanings in Dutch too ..

Thought it mean cat in Dutch? In Afrikaans it means that mouse that has been chop with an axe.

The literal meaning is a female cat.
The slang is female genitalia.

[OomStruisbaai]

I am sure Souties (our name for English speakers) may have a lot to learn from Afrikaans.

[Sandstorm]

Good idea I like languages.

Would a Dutch speaker and Afrikaans speaker be able to hold a conversation?

Yes. My global colleague is Dutch. He understand my Afrikaans. However Poes in Afrikaans and Dutch is something totally different

When Afrikaaners speak to Dutch people they say it’s like talking to a two year old. I can understand about 40% of a Dutch conversation and read maybe 60%.

[Gumboot]

I wonder if that's where the English term "double Dutch" comes from.

[Calculon]

Good idea I like languages.

Would a Dutch speaker and Afrikaans speaker be able to hold a conversation?

Yes. My global colleague is Dutch. He understand my Afrikaans. However Poes in Afrikaans and Dutch is something totally different

When Afrikaaners speak to Dutch people they say it’s like talking to a two year old. I can understand about 40% of a Dutch conversation and read maybe 60%.

Unless they are already familiar with some Dutch, I would say around 40% would be typical for an Afrikaans speaker. In my experience a Dutch person and Afrikaner would normally converse in English with each other

[OomStruisbaai]

Afrikaans = Kitchen Dutch.

[Calculon]

Afrikaans = Kitchen Dutch.

Koos Kombuis liedtjie waar hy sing "liefde uit die oude doos". Wat's die etymology van die woord "doos" in hierdie opsig?

[OomStruisbaai]

Afrikaans = Kitchen Dutch.

Koos Kombuis liedtjie waar hy sing "liefde uit die oude doos". Wat's die etymology van die woord "doos" in hierdie opsig?

Het n letterlike en figuurlike betekenis.

[charltom]

Are you sure? Poes can have different meanings in Dutch too ..

Thought it mean cat in Dutch? In Afrikaans it means that mouse that has been chop with an axe.

The literal meaning is a female cat.
The slang is female genitalia.

So not entirely dissimilar to "pussy" in English then.

[Calculon]

Afrikaans = Kitchen Dutch.

Koos Kombuis liedtjie waar hy sing "liefde uit die oude doos". Wat's die etymology van die woord "doos" in hierdie opsig?

Het n letterlike en figuurlike betekenis.

wat het dit te doen met die etimologie?

[OomStruisbaai]

Koos Kombuis liedtjie waar hy sing "liefde uit die oude doos". Wat's die etymology van die woord "doos" in hierdie opsig?

Het n letterlike en figuurlike betekenis.

wat het dit te doen met die etimologie?

ettermologie is ver bo my vuurmaakplek.

[OomStruisbaai]

Sad to see our Souties not contributing to this thread especially Sards. He has a Boer surname, use a Boer posting name but is very Soutie.

[Hellraiser]

Sards is John Smit?

[Insane_Homer]

Sad to see our Souties not contributing

I are wearing a jean pant

[OomStruisbaai]

Sards is John Smit?

No worse then John Smith. John is English.

[OomStruisbaai]

Sad to see our Souties not contributing

I are wearing a jean pant

[assfly]

Referring to Afrikaans as a version of Dutch is underselling it a bit.

Afrikaans is a truly remarkable language, and is intertwined with the history of South Africa. Yes, Dutch has the strongest influence on it, but there are many other languages that contributed to it including French, English, German, Malay and all of the local languages. It has obviously been tarnished by its association with Apartheid, but it is probably the most South African language of them all.

My Afrikaans is poor, when I moved to SA from Zim I was told I didn't have to take Afrikaans as a language for my matric. Looking back this was a big mistake, I should have been told to learn it regardless.

[Blake]

When Afrikaaners speak to Dutch people they say it’s like talking to a two year old. I can understand about 40% of a Dutch conversation and read maybe 60%.

That's because it is a simplified version of Dutch what was spoken by the slaves in the kitchens ("Kitchen Dutch") where they picked up on the nouns and verbs, but not the finer nuances of grammar etc.
In time the language was formalised by former slaves who wanted it to have official recognition so all kinds of rules were introduced causing it to diverge even more from Dutch.

Learning some Dutch now, I have really come to appreciate the amazing job they did to remove a lot of the clutter and inconsistencies.

Fun fact: one of the first books printed in Afrikaans was a Quran, while the Bibles of the time were still family Bibles in Dutch.

[vball]

So is Afrikans nearer High Dutch or more like Vlaams?

I lived in Antwerp 25 years ago and my wife and I nearly fell out over dinner the night after my first Vlaams lesson. She pointed to a pea and I said "erwt" and she said "doperwetn". After that we decided just to speak English. Our kids went to kleuterschool and spoke Vlaams with a really strong accent. Alas, we left for Scotland 5 years later and after 20 years, all I can remember is how to order beer, food and room. That is enough I think.

[OomStruisbaai]

Vlaams. You should at least learn a few swear words.

[OomStruisbaai]

[epwc]

Vlaams. You should at least learn a few swear words.

I know swear words in every language that I know anything of

[Blake]

So is Afrikans nearer High Dutch or more like Vlaams?

I lived in Antwerp 25 years ago and my wife and I nearly fell out over dinner the night after my first Vlaams lesson. She pointed to a pea and I said "erwt" and she said "doperwetn". After that we decided just to speak English. Our kids went to kleuterschool and spoke Vlaams with a really strong accent. Alas, we left for Scotland 5 years later and after 20 years, all I can remember is how to order beer, food and room. That is enough I think.

I think it's much closer to Vlaams, but not sure if it's by coincidence or by design.

I know that in schools kids in the Cape were taught to speak, read and write High Dutch, but I suspect when the freed slaves began efforts to formalise their "Kitchen Dutch" into what is now Afrikaans, they might have borrowed a lot from Vlaams where the tussentaal had already done some legwork in formalising a non-standard version of Dutch.

[troglodiet]

Vlaams. You should at least learn a few swear words.

The is a peculiar difference between Afrikaans and Dutch wrt the phrase "Ek gaan jou neuk".

Be careful when using it.

[troglodiet]

Referring to Afrikaans as a version of Dutch is underselling it a bit.

Afrikaans is a truly remarkable language, and is intertwined with the history of South Africa. Yes, Dutch has the strongest influence on it, but there are many other languages that contributed to it including French, English, German, Malay and all of the local languages.

Which perfectly fits the description of a Creole language.

So there is an argument to be made that it's being oversold, or glorified a bit.

To me Afrikaans is a very simplified version of Dutch, basically like what the Yanks did to English, just worse. The apartheid era actually played a significant role in making people proud of this "unique, new language" as part of selling etho-nationalism to us.

Dutch was basically an official language of South Africa until 1984. However it's a bit complicated, as Afrikaans and Dutch were regarded as two versions of the same language by the Nats. But it was only in 1984 that Dutch was completely dropped.

When I was at school in the 80s, Dutch was still taught and was part of one subject called Afrikaans. Although we didn't go into as much detail with Dutch, we still had a Dutch book we had to read and answer questions about the book, answers in Dutch.

There are some accents of Dutch that sounds like Greek to me, but when a person speaks "standard" Dutch, it takes me a while to find my ears so to speak, thereafter I can probably understand 75% of it. When reading I'd say it's about 90%.

When trying to speak it, it ends up with me pronouncing Afrikaans sentences with some words changed to make it sound Dutch.

One thing I've never been able to wrap my head around is when to use the "zijn" in a sentence.

[OomStruisbaai]

I also went through the Dutch reading classes. For me the Dutch have a lot of "en" after many Afrikaans words. We also had a Dutch Bible when I was a kid.

My brother went to Holland and still lives there. I still dream about visiting him but will never afford it. He was a ginekoloog (parrapleeg) now on pension.

[Calculon]

So is Afrikans nearer High Dutch or more like Vlaams?

I lived in Antwerp 25 years ago and my wife and I nearly fell out over dinner the night after my first Vlaams lesson. She pointed to a pea and I said "erwt" and she said "doperwetn". After that we decided just to speak English. Our kids went to kleuterschool and spoke Vlaams with a really strong accent. Alas, we left for Scotland 5 years later and after 20 years, all I can remember is how to order beer, food and room. That is enough I think.

I think it's much closer to Vlaams, but not sure if it's by coincidence or by design.

I know that in schools kids in the Cape were taught to speak, read and write High Dutch, but I suspect when the freed slaves began efforts to formalise their "Kitchen Dutch" into what is now Afrikaans, they might have borrowed a lot from Vlaams where the tussentaal had already done some legwork in formalising a non-standard version of Dutch.

Not exactly, Flemish has several different dialects so something like east Brabant will sound a lot different to Afrikaans compared to Standard Dutch due mainly to its French influence. Tussentaal, which is a mix of the Vlaams dialects and the lingua franca of Vlaanderen, although that also has variation depending where its spoken and who speaks it, does sound more like Afrikaans due to having a soft G, not hard G like Standard Dutch (which is why Dutch sound like such an ugly language to us), using “nie” instead of “niet” and sometimes “’n” instead of “een”. However, partly due to French influence vocabulary on average would be not as close to Afrikaans as standard Dutch, i.e. “fiets” in Afrikaans and Dutch, “velo” in Vlaams.

[Blake]

So is Afrikans nearer High Dutch or more like Vlaams?

I lived in Antwerp 25 years ago and my wife and I nearly fell out over dinner the night after my first Vlaams lesson. She pointed to a pea and I said "erwt" and she said "doperwetn". After that we decided just to speak English. Our kids went to kleuterschool and spoke Vlaams with a really strong accent. Alas, we left for Scotland 5 years later and after 20 years, all I can remember is how to order beer, food and room. That is enough I think.

I think it's much closer to Vlaams, but not sure if it's by coincidence or by design.

I know that in schools kids in the Cape were taught to speak, read and write High Dutch, but I suspect when the freed slaves began efforts to formalise their "Kitchen Dutch" into what is now Afrikaans, they might have borrowed a lot from Vlaams where the tussentaal had already done some legwork in formalising a non-standard version of Dutch.

Not exactly, Flemish has several different dialects so something like east Brabant will sound a lot different to Afrikaans compared to Standard Dutch due mainly to its French influence. Tussentaal, which is a mix of the Vlaams dialects and the lingua franca of Vlaanderen, although that also has variation depending where its spoken and who speaks it, does sound more like Afrikaans due to having a soft G, not hard G like Standard Dutch (which is why Dutch sound like such an ugly language to us), using “nie” instead of “niet” and sometimes “’n” instead of “een”. However, partly due to French influence vocabulary on average would be not as close to Afrikaans as standard Dutch, i.e. “fiets” in Afrikaans and Dutch, “velo” in Vlaams.

Ah okay. It does get quite messy once you dig into the details, which is the case with a lot of creole languages.
Trying to attribute "which language is it closest to" becomes quite difficult.

[Sandstorm]

In the Cape in High School we all had to take Afrikaans. Lower grade students did standard Afrikaans, those who chose Higher Grade did Afrikaans and Dutch. I tried Higher Grade for a year in Std 8, but the Dutch was just too difficult and there was no point for further education so I dropped it.

It might have helped my Afrikaans because I got a B grade two years later for Matric.

[OomStruisbaai]

In the Cape in High School we all had to take Afrikaans. Lower grade students did standard Afrikaans, those who chose Higher Grade did Afrikaans and Dutch. I tried Higher Grade for a year in Std 8, but the Dutch was just too difficult and there was no point for further education so I dropped it.

It might have helped my Afrikaans because I got a B grade two years later for Matric.

Boerseun jy!

[vball]

Not exactly, Flemish has several different dialects so something like east Brabant will sound a lot different to Afrikaans compared to Standard Dutch due mainly to its French influence. Tussentaal, which is a mix of the Vlaams dialects and the lingua franca of Vlaanderen, although that also has variation depending where its spoken and who speaks it, does sound more like Afrikaans due to having a soft G, not hard G like Standard Dutch (which is why Dutch sound like such an ugly language to us), using “nie” instead of “niet” and sometimes “’n” instead of “een”. However, partly due to French influence vocabulary on average would be not as close to Afrikaans as standard Dutch, i.e. “fiets” in Afrikaans and Dutch, “velo” in Vlaams.

I was getting along relatively well in my ability to listen to people Antwerp speak and understand roughly what was going on. I then met a lady from West Flanders and did not have a clue what she was saying. In fact some of my Belgian work colleagues said they struggled !! I often used to travel on the Thalys for the day to Paris and even at an early adventure into the language discussions here, it was easy to identify the Dutch speaking. It was also, in general, louder.

[salanya]

Afrikaans does sound like a simplified Dutch, with less grammar involved, and guidelines on spelling dismissed (i.e. it hasn't evolved into modern Dutch). So phonetically the languages are very similar, but written down they aren't as alike.

There is a connection with Vlaams, which has kept a few more historic language notes. (Like the 'ae' voor 'aa' sounds).
But the actual spoken Afrikaans language sounds more akin to Dutch.

[Monk]

Afrikaans does sound like a simplified Dutch, with less grammar involved, and guidelines on spelling dismissed (i.e. it hasn't evolved into modern Dutch). So phonetically the languages are very similar, but written down they aren't as alike.

There is a connection with Vlaams, which has kept a few more historic language notes. (Like the 'ae' voor 'aa' sounds).
But the actual spoken Afrikaans language sounds more akin to Dutch.

What do you mean with "guidelines on spelling dismissed"?

[salanya]

Afrikaans does sound like a simplified Dutch, with less grammar involved, and guidelines on spelling dismissed (i.e. it hasn't evolved into modern Dutch). So phonetically the languages are very similar, but written down they aren't as alike.

There is a connection with Vlaams, which has kept a few more historic language notes. (Like the 'ae' voor 'aa' sounds).
But the actual spoken Afrikaans language sounds more akin to Dutch.

I meant that Afrikaans sounds like all the spelling guidelines introduced in Dutch over the last 250 years never arrived or were never adopted (dismissed sounds a bit negative perhaps, it wasn't intended as such)