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Mick’s Afrikaans study journal | ||
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| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5922 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 1 of 57 30 September 2008 at 4:21pm | IP Logged |
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I have been studying Afrikaans for almost two years, although I've only been seriously studying it for about a year. I am still at a beginning level as I can't follow spoken Afrikaans yet. My reading comprehension seems to be improving, I read a blog entry Sunday and understood almost every word without using the dictionary. I figure that to make real progress in speaking I'll need to do more listening than reading. Edited by mick33 on 03 January 2012 at 11:40pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5922 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 2 of 57 03 October 2008 at 2:18pm | IP Logged |
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I think it's time I started studying more Afrikaans grammar. I wouldn't say I've hit a brick wall, but more of a plateau, now my progress seems to come more slowly. I have been posting in Afrikaans in the Multilingual Lounge's Nederlands/Afrikaans/ Frysk/Plattdüütsch thread for the last few days. Posting in Afrikaans is helping, it forces me to actually think in Afrikaans rather than merely thinking about it. I know I must be making some mistakes. I'm also a little surprised that I can understand most of the posts in the above-mentioned thread as they are mostly written in Dutch, sometimes I don't even need the dictionary. Afrikaans and Dutch are indeed quite similar but there are some immediately recognizable differences. Afrikaans does not usually use the letters "c","q","x" or "z", and the digraph "ij" is only found in proper names. Thus, Dutch uses the word "waarschijnlijk"; in Afrikaans the same word is spelled "waarskynlik" but the meaning has not changed. The preceeding example is sufficient to demonstrate that "ch" becomes "k" and "ij" usually becomes "y" but the suffix "lijk" is changed to "i". I think that Afrikaans grammar has also been simplified, though it probably is derived from 17th century Dutch. The following sentences may not be the best illustration, it is too simple and therefore too similar in all three languages. but will still show that Afrikaans has little or no conjugation.
English "I have bought a house" Nederlands "Ik heb een huis gekocht." Afrikaans "Ek het 'n huis gekoop." I'll have to review my notes before I can explain Afrikaans grammar in further detail. Edited by mick33 on 25 November 2008 at 2:12pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5922 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 3 of 57 08 October 2008 at 12:27pm | IP Logged |
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I had hoped that I could review the limited material I have on Afrikaans grammar last weekend, but I was too busy. Hopefully, I can find time this week. I am now certain that I made some grammatical mistakes when I posted messages in Afrikaans last week. I know that I need to get comfortable with the grammar because one of the reasons I chose to study Afrikaans was so that I could use it as a gateway to learning other Germanic languages, and Afrikaans grammar appears to fall somewhere between English and Dutch. This is not my only reason for learning Afrikaans, but is an important one. Edited by mick33 on 07 December 2008 at 2:07am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5922 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 4 of 57 08 October 2008 at 12:28pm | IP Logged |
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Earlier today I wrote that I hoped I could study my notes on Afrikaans grammar and write about that this week, so as to hopefully improve my ability to write in Afrikaans. To begin with, simple sentences using the present tense in Afrikaans have basically the same structure as in English.
Examples: Eng. I listen to the radio. Afr. Ek luister radio. or Ek luister na die radio. Eng. I am hungry. Afr. Ek is honger. Eng. I am tired. Afr. Ek is moeg. The first sentence's word order is Subject (Ek) -Verb (luister) -Object (radio) The word order is, in the second sentence above, Subject (Ek)-Verb (is) -Object (honger). So far nothing difficult for me to remember. I noticed something else; in these simple sentences Afrikaans sometimes uses "is", thus no need for the words "am" or "are", and sometimes "is" would be unnecessary. Simple past tense sentence are probably where Afrikaans looks more like Dutch, (Note: in Dutch "het" is one of two definite articles, the other being "de", Afrikaans has only one definite article "die".) In Afrikaans "het" corresponds to "have" or "had" or "did" in English and usually signifies the past tense, Afrikaans also often adds the prefix "ge" to most second verbs in the past tense. Examples: Afr. Ek het lemoensap gedrink. Eng. I drank orange juice. It is important to note that the structure of the Afrikaans sentence has changed, it has become a little more complex. Here is another example Afr. Sy het 'n appel geëet. Eng. She ate an apple. In basic sentences in the past tense; Afrikaans word order becomes Subject=Sy-1st Verb=het-Object='n appel-2nd Verb=geëet. The above examples show why I have think I made some mistakes in Afrikaans posts last week. I haven't even looked at the future tense or more complex sentence structures in the present or past tense. Maybe I can look at those later on in the week. Edited by mick33 on 10 October 2008 at 10:08pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5922 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 5 of 57 10 October 2008 at 10:56pm | IP Logged |
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Here I am to examine more of my notes on Afrikaans grammar, today I'm looking at the future tense. First, a little note of explanation; in the last post I forgot to mention the indefinite article in Afrikaans, the last example of the past tense is "Sy het 'n appel geëet." before the word "appel" is 'n, which corresponds to the English words "a" or "an". Definitely something worth remebering. The future tense is very similar in format to the past tense, only this time the helping verb is "sal" rather than "het" and there is no prefix for the second verb.
Examples: Afr. Ek sal my fiets ry Eng. I will ride my bicycle. Afr. Joe sal melk drink. Eng. Joe will drink milk. The word order is, as I wrote earlier, very much like the past tense. To review, the structure in the first sentence is: Subject-1st (helping)Verb-Object-2nd Verb, so the Subject (Ek) -1st Verb (sal) -Object (fiets) -2nd Verb (ry). So I guess I'm done with the simple sentences, now I'll have to review my notes further to get into questions and more complex things such as negation. Edited by mick33 on 20 December 2008 at 12:46pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5922 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 6 of 57 16 October 2008 at 5:07pm | IP Logged |
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I decided not to focus on how to form questions in Afrikaans now, I'm more interested in something else. One of the first things I noticed about Afrikaans is that it allows the use of double negatives. I really enjoy this because I am an American who speaks English with a distinctive Southern drawl, and even though I know better I occasionally say things like "that don't make no sense" without realizing I''m speaking incorrectly until after I've spoken. I was already curious about the language, but not initially excited as I figured learning a second language would mean alternating between tedious repetitive excercises and all too brief moments of happiness when I realized I was actually understanding written or spoken Afrikaans. So, I may have made a mistake when, with virtually no idea how best to approach the study of a new language, I almost immediately began reading whatever I could find about how double negtives work in Afrikaans, though I had studied little else. I've since realized that I learn better by starting with vocabulary then moving to grammar. I wondered why Afrikaans uses double negatives; I was pretty sure Standaard Nederlands did not, and I assumed most other Germanic languages did not allow double negatives either. Enough about me, I'll now get into the double negatives though this could take more than one journal entry to cover; it took a little while for me to get it right. In a very simple sentence no double negative is necessary.
Afr. Ek verstaan nie. Eng. I do not understand. The sentence only had a subject (Ek) and a verb (verstaan) so only one negative word (nie), but if the sentence had an object as well it would look like this Afr. My broer drink nie water nie. Eng. My brother does not drink water. Just to show the proper word order the Afrikaans sentence more literally translates as "My brother drink not water not." This sentence also has an object so it has a second "nie"after the object. The sentence is ordered as follows: subject (my broer) 1st verb (drink) 1st negative (nie) object (water) 2nd negative (nie). This is only for simple sentences however. More complex sentences require further examination. But at least I have provided a brief overview of how the concept works. For me, double negatives are fun to read write and say, and I am happy I'm learning a language where I can use them and be speaking correctly. Edited by mick33 on 25 November 2008 at 2:15pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5922 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 7 of 57 17 October 2008 at 2:17pm | IP Logged |
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I know I wrote in my last entry that I would write more about grammar, but that will have to wait. I've realized that my progress with vocabulary has almost stopped. When I began studying Afrikaans, I made what I soon realized were two mistakes; the first was to attempt learn grammar before anything else, as I mentioned in the previous entry; and second I had a naively ambitious plan to learn Afrikaans and Dutch simultaneously. I erroneously figured that the many similarities between the languages, especially given the fact that I already know English, would make it easy to learn Afrikaans and Dutch rapidly. But I was wrong, there appeared, at least for a beginning language learner, to be as many differences as there were similarities and I became confused very quickly. I originally had a goal to be become fluent in both languages within 1 year; even though my only experience with another language was to take two years of Spanish in high school, which did me no good at all as I learned very little and had no idea how to retain or build on what I did learn. Instead of becoming discouraged when I realized my mistakes I simply decided that I was for now most interested in Afrikaans and would leave Dutch for later. Next I had to decide how to proceed with Afrikaans, I decided to study vocabulary and began to write out a list of words in Afrikaans on the left hand side of a page with definitions in English on the right side. This idea didn't work well for me, the list quickly became too long to be of any practical use, and seemed to be an inefficient and indeed ineffective way to learn vocabulary. I decided on attempting to translate online articles and song lyrics from Afrikaans to English; though I believed this could also be problematic, no matter how similar languages appear at first glance some words and phrases seem untranslatable. This seems more efficient but I now need to make flashcards and I think I must try shorter vocabulary lists like the ones Iversen has suggested in some of his posts to continue making progress. Edited by mick33 on 23 March 2010 at 9:11am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5922 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 8 of 57 21 October 2008 at 2:31pm | IP Logged |
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Today, I think I will write more about Afrikaans grammar. I have not gotten very far into improving my method for studying, or expanding my vocabulary because I'm still attempting to develop a combination of techniques that will, I hope, work for me. Now, before going further into grammar I wish to explain word order more completely. In simple sentences that convey only very basic ideas, Afrikaans word order is Subject>Verb>Object. To review I will be using examples from my previous journal entries
Present Tense Example: Ek luister radio. Past Tense Example: Ek het lemoensap gedrink. Future Tense Exampe: Ek sal my fiets ry. In the above examples, Afrikaans word order might look like a combination of Dutch and English, with the present tense more like English, and the past and future tenses resembling simplified Dutch. The next step for me is to mention how word order is taught in Afrikaans. According to what used to be on Afrikaans.us before it was hacked, an explanation often used in South Africa is an acronym; SvTOMPvI This acronym stands for The acronym is a good example and seems to be a useful guide for sentence construction, though it neglects questions, negatives and tenses. Questions work like this Verb>Subject. When asking a specific question, use question words; Wie (Who), Hoekom or Waarom (Why), Hoe (How), Wanneer (When), Wat (What) etc. The form will now be: Question word>Verb>Subject>Object. (if there is one) My next entry will explain briefly how questions are formed using the past and future tenses. After that back to vocabulary; I know I need to spend more time on it. Edited by mick33 on 30 October 2008 at 4:00am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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