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Good Afrikaans Resource

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13 messages over 2 pages: 1
Talairan
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Spain
Joined 6569 days ago

194 posts - 258 votes 
Speaks: Afrikaans, English*, Gypsy/Romani, Dutch
Studies: Spanish, Flemish, Galician, Aramaic

 
 Message 9 of 13
27 January 2010 at 12:34pm | IP Logged 
mick33 wrote:
   The translations won't perfectly match, Afrikaans has less verb tenses than English and may sometimes use the present tense where English does not.

Afrikaans can express itself just as easily as English in all the tenses. These stories do not display the historical present (except in the English version), but are translated in a different tense altogether. For an Afrikaans learner this could be confusing.
Elke oggend gaan sy kantoor toe en wag vir telefoonoproepe of om die deur oop te maak vir kliente wat haar dienste nodig het. should be in English: Every afternoon she goes to her office and waits for telephone calls or to open the door for clients who need her services.
I would imagine that they have been translated into the present as they may be for absolute beginners, and the present tense is easier to understand. Nevertheless, this is a great resource.

(Just had a look at the Spanish, Zulu and Dutch versions and they are translated more accurately with respect to tense.)
3 persons have voted this message useful



mick33
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5901 days ago

1335 posts - 1632 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Finnish
Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish

 
 Message 10 of 13
29 January 2010 at 10:03am | IP Logged 
fanatic wrote:
The Afrikaans is a translation from the English, not the other way round. So, I guess the translator felt the present tense was best. I have downloaded the translations in a number of languages and they are all approximate.

I have found them all to be helpful and good fun to study. It is a bit of light hearted language study.
I knew I should have looked at the translation more closely. You are correct, I had mistakenly assumed that the Afrikaans version was the original text, and I should have remembered that translations are usually approximate. Thank you for pointing these things out.

Edited by mick33 on 29 January 2010 at 10:09am

2 persons have voted this message useful



ewomahony
Diglot
Groupie
England
Joined 5559 days ago

91 posts - 115 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Italian, French, Afrikaans

 
 Message 11 of 13
30 May 2010 at 12:14am | IP Logged 
could anyone recommend an online afrikaans grammar?
1 person has voted this message useful



EmmiInEurope
Tetraglot
Newbie
South Africa
nederlandsvirafrikaa
Joined 5092 days ago

13 posts - 26 votes
Speaks: Afrikaans*, English, French, Dutch
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 12 of 13
01 December 2010 at 8:45am | IP Logged 
Talairan wrote:
mick33 wrote:
   The translations won't perfectly match, Afrikaans
has less verb tenses than English and may sometimes use the present tense where English
does not.

Afrikaans can express itself just as easily as English in all the tenses. These stories
do not display the historical present (except in the English version), but are
translated in a different tense altogether. For an Afrikaans learner this could be
confusing.
Elke oggend gaan sy kantoor toe en wag vir telefoonoproepe of om die deur oop te
maak vir kliente wat haar dienste nodig het.
should be in English: Every
afternoon she goes to her office and waits for telephone calls or to open the door for
clients who need her services.

I would imagine that they have been translated into the present as they may be for
absolute beginners, and the present tense is easier to understand. Nevertheless, this
is a great resource.

(Just had a look at the Spanish, Zulu and Dutch versions and they are translated more
accurately with respect to tense.)


Apologies for digging this topic out the ashes again - however I find that this is
quite an interesting quirk of the Afrikaans language and one that wasn't really
explained in the replies above.

The translation is in fact correct. I would have translated it in the present tense
too. This is because the present tense is also commonly used as the 'storytelling'
tense. Telling a story in the past tense sounds long and clumsy and is in fact not
really used. I have seen translations of childrens stories from English to Afrikaans
where the translator decided to stick to the past tense - and it just sounds wrong.

I guess I find this interesting because this is yet another aspect where Afrikaans was
very much simplified. For a native language speaker it would be clear that, in a story
like this, past tense is implied even when present tense is used.

3 persons have voted this message useful



Theycalme_Jane
Diglot
Newbie
United Kingdom
theafrikaanschalleng
Joined 4102 days ago

28 posts - 48 votes
Speaks: German*, English

 
 Message 13 of 13
11 August 2013 at 5:54pm | IP Logged 
Hi,

I've just joined the forum, looking for helpful internet links and resources on
Afrikaans. I found that the links that have been advertised in this thread are no
longer working. :-(

I have conducted research for my blog on Afrikaans and I find it very sad that the
resources appear to be rather scarce for more advanced learners (not that I am just
yet), the dictionaries not very well-maintained, there are no pronounciation aids in
the dictionaries.

As for grammar, I have found a few sources, but they are scattered and not very in-
depth. Bilingual sites would be a great help.


2 persons have voted this message useful



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