Since the beginning of August a lovely fellow 17/18 volunteer, Daniel had been helping me and a few other volunteers to learn Afrikaans. He’s taught us some great questions, answers, phrases and EVEN the numbers to 100. I think it’s safe to say within a month I’m pretty much fluent in Afrikaans, anyone who says otherwise is just hating. I’ve learnt that Afrikaans is a lot easier to learn than a language like French. Some phrases are almost identical to English its just a few letters are pronounced differently. For example, if I asked ‘What is your name?’ in Afrikaans you would ask ‘Wat is jou naam?’ Which is also pronounced different to how it looks. ‘W’ is pronounced as a ‘V’ and ‘J’ is pronounced as ‘Y’. There are a few other pronunciation differences but if you change those two sounds you get the gist.
It’s been fun and definitely kept the excitement going strong for the few of us on skype during each lesson. We’ve had a few laughs and especially a few at my expense for never bloody pronouncing the number 19 right. I would usually let it slide but considering I am 19 years old, I think it’s important to be able to answer someone if they ask how old I am. My birthday is also on the 19th June so I guess it’s been adding, even more, pressure to me saying it correctly.
I’m extremely excited to try out my Afrikaans in one week from now!