Learning the Language

[NurseFet]

So this is a post for both me and my husband, @WFet . He has recently gotten into the international trophy hunting business on the importation side. We are slowly learning the value of being able to speak the local languages, Afrikaans, French, Spanish, etc, and interpreters are not always available at a moment's notice.

Any advice on how to learn Afrikaans? Haven't been able to find anything that's like a Rosetta Stone for Afrikaans thus far in my searches. Advice on the best programs to learn French and Spanish as well?

 

[mdwest]

I’ve been using the free Duolingo app on my phone to keep spanish skills brushed up on...

There are probably better tools out there.. but free is a price that’s hard to beat

I’ve found it reasonably effective..

 

[Eric Anderson]

So this is a post for both me and my husband, @WFet . He has recently gotten into the international trophy hunting business on the importation side. We are slowly learning the value of being able to speak the local languages, Afrikaans, French, Spanish, etc, and interpreters are not always available at a moment's notice.

Any advice on how to learn Afrikaans? Haven't been able to find anything that's like a Rosetta Stone for Afrikaans thus far in my searches. Advice on the best programs to learn French and Spanish as well?

My friends who speak Afrikaans say that they can understand Dutch. It is not perfect by any means, but a lot more effective than pointy talkie. I am not aware of any commercial learning program for Afrikaans. Not enough people speak it.

 

[Dewald]

Regarding Apps I’m not sure. There must be something available in South Africa for English speaking and Africans to learn. I will find out.

It should be easy to learn as it is a phonetic language, and has a rather small vocabulary (look at an Afrikaans:English dictionary from the side - 3/4 is English).

There are no different tenses of auxiliary verbs.
In other words:
I am/ I was - ek is / ek was
You are / You were - jy is / jy was
He is/ He was - hy is / hy was

Verbs also do not change from present to past tense, they all just get a prefix “ge-“

Eg. I hunt - “Ek jag”
“I have hunted” or “I hunted” - Ek het gejag”

Nouns also do not have gender linked to them like Latin, German etc so “the” remains “die”, as opposed to for eg German

“Die, Der, Das”, changing to “Die, Dem, Das”, and again to “Der, Den, Dem” - all meaning “The” but changing in the dative or accusative terms.

The only difficulty for you might be pronouncing certain sounds like our “g” and “r”

I’ll find out if there is something this side available

 

[Boela]

Afrikaans is a very young language that has only been spoken for the last 150 years or so. The language derives from Dutch with a bit of German mixed into it just for some good measure.
The majority of Afrikaans speaking South Africans are at least bilingual and can therefore speak English quite well too. I doubt if you will find any mayor problems regarding communication problems out a business point of view.

If I may make a recommendation, I would suggest the following:
First learn to speak German. There is a whole lot more aids on the market to help learn master the language than Afrikaans. Once you have mastered German, it will be a walk in the park to learn Afrikaans since a lot of syllables are pronounced similarly, and sence construction is in line with one another too.

I would imagine that being German abled, it will be a stronger competitive business than Afrikaans. Namibia has a very large German community for that matter.

There is however just a few words that are very Afrikaans and simply rolls off the tongue like now other.....

Bakkie, Lekker, Braai, Ja-Nee and of course a few curse words that you will pick up very quickly too......
If I am not mistaking, there is a thread on the forum that has a whole array of Afrikaans words and their meanings.

Should you require any assistance regarding Afrikaans though, please do not hesitate to ask- there is some very well spoken Afrikaans forum members that I am sure will be willing to help.
I will gladly assist too.

Vriendelikke groete,
Boela.

 

[mdwest]

For what it is worth, both German and Dutch are available on the free duolingo app...

Neither are Afrikaans, but they may be a good place to start...

 

[NurseFet]

Afrikaans is a very young language that has only been spoken for the last 150 years or so. The language derives from Dutch with a bit of German mixed into it just for some good measure.
The majority of Afrikaans speaking South Africans are at least bilingual and can therefore speak English quite well too. I doubt if you will find any mayor problems regarding communication problems out a business point of view.

If I may make a recommendation, I would suggest the following:
First learn to speak German. There is a whole lot more aids on the market to help learn master the language than Afrikaans. Once you have mastered German, it will be a walk in the park to learn Afrikaans since a lot of syllables are pronounced similarly, and sence construction is in line with one another too.

I would imagine that being German abled, it will be a stronger competitive business than Afrikaans. Namibia has a very large German community for that matter.

There is however just a few words that are very Afrikaans and simply rolls off the tongue like now other.....

Bakkie, Lekker, Braai, Ja-Nee and of course a few curse words that you will pick up very quickly too......
If I am not mistaking, there is a thread on the forum that has a whole array of Afrikaans words and their meanings.

Should you require any assistance regarding Afrikaans though, please do not hesitate to ask- there is some very well spoken Afrikaans forum members that I am sure will be willing to help.
I will gladly assist too.

Vriendelikke groete,
Boela.

@WFet will be happy to hear this recommendation. He is relatively familiar with basic German after taking it for 4 years throughout high school. (We will soon find out how good of a student he was and if he paid attention in class ) He seemed more responsive to brushing up on German, so this is most likely where we will start.

I am the Spanish speaker of the 2 of us and anticipate it to be the last language he learns since it is so different from his foreign language base. Sadly, this is probably the language that would make him the most valuable stateside and in the Central/South American market. I definitely have work to do on the Spanish front.

Is Rosetta Stone as helpful as they say or are there other companies that have the same self-taught system y'all would recommend?

 

[Nyati]

It would be nice to learn Afrikaans, as any other language, but you don´t really need it, as everybody in SA speaks English.

 

[jeanes]

You might try "Complete Afrikaans" by Lydia McDermott.

 

[Velo Dog]

Hello NurseFet,

English is the most commonly spoken language on earth.
Spanish is the second most commonly spoken (around 150-million Spanish speakers world wide).
I chose Spanish as my second lingo due to that statistic.
You mentioned that you already speak Spanish so perhaps my info could be useful to other members contemplating a second language.

Tried Rosetta Stone but, it required going on line to chat for a half hour each evening, with other Rosetta Stone students.
I simply don’t have time for that, as I am an active senior hahahaha.
So, I managed to enjoy some success by repetition.
“Some” means that I speak Spanish like Tarzan now.

After buying some recorded lessons at a book store, I made my own that, are re-formatted to the English sentence first then, the same sentence in Spanish 4 times s-l-o-w-l-y.
It was worth the time invested to re-make these into a usable format.
Why the factory does not make theirs in this way remains a mystery.
All 3 brands I tried, either had the sentence in Spanish first, followed by the English version (nearly useless IMO) or, if the first offering was spoken in English, the corresponding Spanish version was only spoken one time, before rushing on to the next sentence.

Likewise, there is an excellent Spanish learning television mini series entitled “Destinos”.
It is an entertaining story line as well as spoken in very articulate, proper Spanish (not the machinegun fast “border slang Spanish” common to Northern Mexico, East L.A., parts of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, etc.
It is subtitled in written English at the lower edge of the screen.

It used to pop up on the TV Travel Chanel or the Discovery Chanel, fairly regular but, I haven’t seen it in several years now.
I am presuming it is available for rent or purchase through some medium out there in syberland somewhere.
If they can make available old sports game re-runs and soap opera re-runs to rent or buy, presumably someone will be offering the Destinos mini-series.

Last but not least, I used to keep a Spanish/English dictionary very handy.
But now, I just use my smarty pants phone to look words up that I’m not familiar with.

Well anyway, I wish you, your hubby, your father in law and all others with you, safe travels and successful hunting.
Also I wish you all the best in your efforts to work a side line within the safari industry.

Cheers from Alaska,
Paul.
(Velo Dog)

 

[Deleted member 43267]

For learning languages, I have found Babbel to be very effective. I did it for five months, and learned enough spanish to make through a flight, customs and immigration, shuttle bus, meals, and simple conversations with fishing guides in Mexico. Note that I speak French, so that likely made it easier. BUT, I do not think that they have an Afrikaans module. Personally, I have been searching for Setswana tutorials and have found nothing that is useful. I wanted to surprise the trackers and camp staff with a few phrases.


Jeff

 

[NurseFet]

I will talk to him about learning to speak Spanish. Maybe I'll be able to talk some sense into him and get him to learn it first. I think it would be the most beneficial and something that we could end up doing together. I hope he will find all this information useful. He's currently working on importing everyone's trophies safely and efficiently at his new job, so he has his hands a little full or he would be replying for himself.

 

[Ridge Runner]

Have you tried: learn Afrikaan, on YouTube?

It's free and you get notices when live video is being streamed or you can watch the video by clicking watch later.

 

[Wade J VanGinkel]

I only speak spanish as a second language. And fairly reasonably. At least for me I've found any learning program only takes yoy so far such as the basics. It takes speaking with people to really sort things out.
Local slangs and dialects really change with spanish depending on where they're from. My spanish is predominantly salvadoran.
Even though most of the people I work with speak English I try to converse in spanish all day as it's the only way I really learn.

 

[375 Ruger Fan]

Hello NurseFet,

English is the most commonly spoken language on earth.
Spanish is the second most commonly spoken (around 150-million Spanish speakers world wide).

Cheers from Alaska,
Paul.
(Velo Dog)

The top most spoken languages in the world

• English (1,132 million speakers) ...
• Mandarin Chinese (1,117 million speakers) ...
• Hindi (615 million speakers) ...
• Spanish (534 million speakers) ...
• Arabic (274 million speakers) ...
• Bangla/Bengali (265 million speakers) ...
• Russian (258 million speakers) ...
• Portuguese (234 million speakers)