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Usefulness of Afrikaans? | ||
Tags: Afrikaans | Usefulness | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| guiguixx1 Octoglot Senior Member Belgium guillaumelp.wordpres Joined 4094 days ago 163 posts - 207 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Dutch, Portuguese, Esperanto, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Polish, Mandarin | Message 1 of 18 26 May 2015 at 2:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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I was wondering if knowing Afrikaans was really useful. I have almost never encountered
the language anywhere, and wonder if it would be worth it. I could learn it easily, thanks to my background in Dutch,, but would I need it one day? How do those who speak it use it in their everyday life? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Speakeasy Senior Member Canada Joined 4054 days ago 507 posts - 1098 votes Studies: German | Message 2 of 18 26 May 2015 at 5:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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Charlize Theron speaks Afrikaans. YouTube. I rest my case. Edited by Speakeasy on 26 May 2015 at 5:34pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| guiguixx1 Octoglot Senior Member Belgium guillaumelp.wordpres Joined 4094 days ago 163 posts - 207 votes Speaks: French*, English, Dutch, Portuguese, Esperanto, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Polish, Mandarin | Message 3 of 18 26 May 2015 at 6:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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It really does sound like a Dutch dialect xD
2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4709 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 4 of 18 27 May 2015 at 3:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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I understand most written Afrikaans without prior training and have conversed in written
Dutch with Afrikaners. Speaking it would be harder, not dissimilar to Norwegians and Swedes learning each other's languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| guiguixx1 Octoglot Senior Member Belgium guillaumelp.wordpres Joined 4094 days ago 163 posts - 207 votes Speaks: French*, English, Dutch, Portuguese, Esperanto, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Polish, Mandarin | Message 5 of 18 27 May 2015 at 4:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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Have you already had to use it? For a job, or even in order to speak with somebody in
your every day life? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4670 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 6 of 18 27 May 2015 at 11:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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Unfortunately, Afrikaans is in the ''you don't really need [to study ] it'' category, just like Irish in Ireland, Maori in NZ, Welsh in Wales or any Indian language other than Hindi in India, (preference for ) English is slowly killing those languages, or at least, killing one or more domains that used to be reserved for those languages.
Edited by Medulin on 28 May 2015 at 12:02am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6705 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 7 of 18 28 May 2015 at 12:33pm | IP Logged | ||
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As a tourist in South Africa you may hear Afrikaans, but everybody expects you to speak English. Which is a pity because I would have liked to try it out during my last visit, but I didn't really get the chance. And finding materials is not as easy as it should be. I have found a few reliable and consistent sources (some even with downloadable podcasts), but it seems that many Afrikaans speakers write books and articles in English and bow to some kind of unspoken expectation that they use English in the mass media down there. In places like airports you would never guess that Afrikaans even existed, but there are sections with books in Afrikaans in all decent bookstores, and you can also buy magazines - although mostly about camping, driving 4w's and visiting animal sanctuaries.
But it would be even harder to find materials in the other dozen or so official languages. I even doubt that Harry Potter has been translated into Zulu or Xhosa. Edited by Iversen on 01 June 2015 at 12:13pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4709 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 8 of 18 28 May 2015 at 2:29pm | IP Logged | ||
I've written in Afrikaans on Interpals before. Speaking it, no. But I could just speak Dutch and that would do the job. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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