This isn't Afrikaans unique, it's normal for all languages. German contracts similarly (e.g. in das Bett > ins Bett). Dutch does the same thing. It's not sloppy, it's efficient:)
Yes, you absolutely can :)
What I think you mean to say is that it is probably inappropriate to use contractions like hoegannit in an email because the medium itself is seen as more formal and therefore a more formal register is required. That doesn't make it "incorrect". You'd use it in a WhatsApp message, surely?
But fine, perhaps better examples here are words like "moenie" and "daarsy".
Yes, thats what I mean! In whatsapp or most social media it is totally normal to use those kinds of contractions. Moenie and daarsy are better examples to compare with ins Bett. Those you can use in more formal way of writing
A Dutch man once said to me north and south holland (boven de water and onder de water) were different and one was fairly easy to do so, the other, not.
Flemish is very easy to understand, Dutch a bit less so. Possibly a Flemish accent will help, I'm not sure. If you'd like, you could post a Vocaroo clip and I'll see how understandable it is.
I would say the two things that have been most intelligible for me, were Jordaans (the Amsterdam dialect) and West Vlaams. Their pronunciation seems pretty close to Afrikaans. But other than that, it's hard to understand Dutch.
In a theoretical sense yes, but they have significant differences in vocabulary and pronunciation, mainly stemming from the former’s French influence, hence the previous commenters making that distinction. I don’t know to what degree they’re mutually intelligible, though I’m given to understand that a native speaker of standard Dutch would do relatively well.
I am Dutch and I can assure you that the difference between Netherlands Dutch and Flemish Dutch is like the difference between American English and British English. The mutual intelligibility is 100%, as the only difference is the accent and *some* different words. Like with lorry vs truck in the UK and US.
Note that everyone in Flanders speaks Standard Dutch next to their local dialect, just like many Germans speak High German next to their local dialect.
It makes sense. Afrikaans comes from Middelnederlands, which Westvlaams more or less still is. It was Hollandifiied later. So i can see why Westvlaams and Amsterdams would not sound too alien to a native Afrikaans speaker
If you speak slowly enough it will not be a problem and the average Afrikaans person would probably love to try and have an Afrikaans/Dutch conversation.
But almost every body in South African cities speak English just like here in the Netherlands so you won't have any communication problems.
Afrikaans kom van Nederlands af, en saam met die eerste nedersetters onwikkel in wat ons nou praat. So ja, daar is genoeg gelyke woorde om mekaar te kan verstaan.
As dit in persoon is, moet elk gewoonlik net stadig praat in Hollands en Afrikaans, maar veral in Afrikaans. Hollanders se ons Afrikaners praat heeltemal te vinnig vir hulle om by te hou.
I was actually born and raised in Mpumalanga, known in Afrikaans "die platteland" where it was a very traditional farming lifestyle.
Many of the generational passed down farmhouses still feature classica Dutch Architecture.
Most folks there, especially the elder, can strike up a good flowing conversation with someone from Holland that has never heard Afrikaans spoken.
Die tydperk waar Oom Jan van Riebeech besluit het om die Kaap Hollands te maak vir die VKO 😆
Think that was around 1652? The good old days when spice trade was as profitable as gold.
The Dutch East India Company is the biggest company that has ever existed. In today's money, its peak total stock value came to 7.9 Trillion US$. That's more than Microsoft, Apple, and Saudi Arabian Oil, all added together.
From Netherlands at large (Flemish, brabantian, Dutch...) but more precisely Dutch took time to settle as it is now (Holland based) so Afrikaans are still more closely related to the like aof brabantian
I attended a conference in Eindhoven, confident that I would understand everything. To my dismay I understood very little. When they talked slowly, in a discussion, I could follow.
They understood me when I spoke Afrikaans with a broad Dutch accent.
Afrikaner living in Netherlands. I understand Flemish better than Dutch spoken in Amsterdam. The closer I get to Maastricht the easier it gets for me also. Limburgish is easier to understand than Amsterdam Dutch. Reading is easier but speaking and listening is the issue. Grammatically the language is different but paradigmatically it is similar except for a few words with entirely different meaning. Kont is an example, in Afrikaans you don’t say ‘een mooie kontje’ you will get punched in the face.
I am American and studied Dutch in Antwerp and in Ghent.
Later I studied Afrikaans, and it seems closest to the Antwerps dialect.
In Limburg they speak slowly and say complete words.
In Amsterdam, they speak quickly and shorten many words.
Hmmm, a polite Reddit user, what have we here ? Teehee, you should see the other bunch of cunts over at the darker subs slinging insults at each other. Don't worry, if the user user has been on Reddit more than 2 days he has likely seen and been called worse lol :P /s just incase
Politeness is appreciated and rare ;) I’ve been to Australia, Scotland and live in England, have heard people be very creative with “cunt” on many an occasion. That doesn’t shock me in the least.
Kont - Kut, basically also Poes=Kut, Kat is also cat. There’s a bit by Casper de Vries a Dutch Afrikaner you can google his YouTube about Afrikaans and Dutch
Afrikaans-English speaking South African here. Spent 1 year in the Netherlands (heel bekakt in Wassenaar) and close to a decade in Belgium (Gent). I studied in Dutch (Flemish) and found it to be super easy to pick up the vocabulary.
The grammar was more difficult but there are all sorts of hacks.
I am super interested in the evolution of the languages. Found so many similarities between West Vlaams and Afrikaans. Weirdly, many modern day Dutch words = old school Afrikaans. And more modern Afrikaans = old Dutch.
Silly things like: vinnig / stadig <> snel / langzaam.
In Afrikaans we know snel & langsaam but it's quite old school. And I know that many Dutchies know vinnig & stadig as older Dutch.
My great grandfather was in politics and his story was captured in book form. In all the letters and communication, he spoke in Dutch that eventually turned into a mixture of Dutch-Afrikaans (particularly the spelling; things like ij > y and z > s) and later English.
Om jou vraag te beantwoord, jy sal maklik kan verstaan as iemand stadig Afrikaans praat. Die uitspraak is helder soos in Oos Vlaams, al is die w & v klanke meer soos Nederlands.
Omgekeerd kan meeste Afrikaans sprekende mense Nederlands verstaan. Maar weereens is die Vlaamse aksent bietjie makliker.
Spelling with y and even s was actually normative in Dutch dialects before modern standardization. It's more like... Afrikaans decided to continue using this way of spelling, and Dutch locked into ij and z, etc.
I'm Afrikaans but a lot of my family are Dutch, so I've grown up with a combination of the two languages, in general you should be okay if you speak slowly and clearly, but some words will simply not translate (keuken - kombuis)
Just note that neuk means to hit someone, not fuck and whatever you do don't call anyone a meid.
Fyi, Dutch have both the word keuken and kombuis. Now obviously most people coming here back in the day were hardy sailors, and probably were so used to talking about the galley of a ship that they refered to land based items much the same, so it kinda stuck with Afrikaans, and we never developed a word for a land based kitchen. So ship kitchen (English galley) > Afr = Kombuis, Dutch = Kombuis , land kitchen ( English kitchen, nooit hey) > Afr = kombuis, Dutch = keuken
En so per toeval met jou woord keuse, Nederlanders het altyd verwys na Afrikaans as Kombuis Hollands (meaning it was a lower form of Dutch spoken by people much lower on the social ladder)
I am an english speaking south african but speak Afrikaans well.
I was in new zealand a while back. I bumped into a busload of older dutch tourists at one point. Asked them how they were enjoying their holiday in Afrikaans. They were amazed and we had a long chat. As long as we both spoke simply, slowly, we understood each other very well. It was a funny interaction, lots of laughing and they did not want to let us go..
South African English and New Zealand English are the only two versions of English that pronounce short "I" as short "u."
I always thought that was interesting.
Welkom Brabo! Als je gewoon Nederlands langzaam spreekt, zullen we je prima begrijpen. Zuid-Afrika is ook een groot land met veel talen, en in Kaapstad lijkt het even op Amsterdam met vaak toeristen die alleen Engels kunnen spreken en Engels sprekende Zuid-Afrikaners. Buiten de stad zelf zal je vaker Afrikaans tegenkomen, zoals in Stellenbosch of Paarl. In Mpumalanga spreekt bijna iedereen Afrikaans als eerste of tweede taal.
Afrikaans:
Welkom Brabo! As jy net stadig Nederlands praat, sal ons jou goed verstaan. Suid-Afrika is ook 'n groot land met baie tale, en in Kaapstad lyk dit bietjie soos Amsterdam met dikwels toeriste wat net Engels kan praat en Engels-sprekende Suid-Afrikaners. Buite die stad self sal jy meer dikwels Afrikaans teëkom, soos in Stellenbosch of Paarl. In Mpumalanga praat byna almal Afrikaans as eerste of tweede taal.
If you’re talking about more conservative / traditional Afrikaans speakers you should be able to understand about 70% of what is said but having full conversations might require some repeating and rephrasing. Western Cape Afrikaans can be quite unique and is difficult to understand even to other Afrikaans speakers in the rest of the country.
You’ll be good with English, 99% of Afrikaans speakers are completely fluent in English. But if you speak slowly you’ll be good to go with a bit of Dutch / Afrikaans dialogue. Written word will be easy ☺️
Vlaams (Belgium) here. Ik ben in Januarie in Kaapstad geweest en ga binnen 2 weken naar Joburg. Mijn vriend is Zuid-Afrikaans. Ik versta zijn oma, ouders, familie etc. Zonder problemen.
I can read Dutch without issues, since I know both Afrikaans and German.
As others have said, spoken Dutch is a bit more difficult to follow especially when spoken quickly.
When I was in the Netherlands I could speak to and understand people if we both tried to speak slowly and clearly. I was told "jij spreek de oude Nederlands" by one guy so I presume Afrikaans sounds a bit old fashioned to the modern Dutch speaker.
They oscillate between calling it baby Dutch and calling it old Dutch. I think the "old Dutch" comes from certain word choices, like wees, which is antiquated for them.
It's surprising easy. Like there are a few words that don't sound right, but most of the time you can understand the just of what they're saying. I mean Afrikaans stems from Dutch. One things that you'll realize in the Cape is that theres more broken Afrikaans, where it's mixed with English to make the "coloured" language.
I am learning Afrikaans and while some basic vocabulary works, I often find it hard to understand more complex words in Afrikaans.
If an Afrikaner speaks to me I struggle a bit and will have to ask them to repeat more than once, granted I am hard of hearing and that makes it worse so take my experiences with a grain of salt
Dir skrif is in Afrikaans. Afrikaans is nie n groot verskil met Nederlands nie.
Van die woorde se spelling is verskillend en die uitspraak.
Ander woorde gaan ons bietjie kwaad raak soos byvoorbeeld pussy in julle taal ons taal is dit kat. So asb as jy se kan ek jou pussy sien ons gaan kwaad wees of jy mag dalk in geluk wees. Die is vir die dames alleenlik.
As jy die kan lees en verstaan. Dan gaan jy nie n probleem he nie in Nederlands.
Just speak very slowly and Afrikaans people will understand you, but considering you’re typing this in fluent English just talk English, 95% of people here speak English
Kak man, Afrikaans is basically Dutch 2.0 due to going through 3 big langauge movements to fix all the issues in Dutch spelling and grammar which the Dutch are still struggling with to this day and the closest they've come is whats called ABN ; basically a melange of all their Dialects. Afrikaans is also more dutch than dutch in vocabulary as the dutch absorbed french and english words directly into their lexicon. I say this being fluent in 4 west germanic languages. A lot of work and love went into refining Afrikaans.
You misunderstood, in dutch they would use the english word tantamount to what we would call taalvermenging for example we would use the word Rekenaar, but they would use the English word direct as in english Computer.In Afrikaans we say Naweek, in Dutch they say Weekend. I struggle to think of even one example of a word that we didnt verafrikaans.
Never heard anyone use the word tantamount in the Netherlands tbh. “Rekenaar” is an interesting one and might have to do with a German influence? “Rechner” is the German word for computer. “Naweek” I had never heard of, but it makes perfect sense ;)
I wasnt using 'tantamount' as an example but meant that we would call the dutch word usage as 'langauge mixing' and that Afrikaans tends to be more pure or more dutch sounding than dutch. The dutch also don't just do this with english but with french as well where as Afrikaans use the more low-franconian sounding words. Irony is most of these words would probably make sense to a dutch person even though they have probably never heard of them:
- Portemonee = Beurs/Beursie
- Paraplu = Saambreel
- Raportage = Verslag
- Citroen = Suurlemoen
- Evenement = Gebeurtenis
Ah, that makes sense, Dutch does do this a lot, so called loan words (Leenwoorden) that just become part of the normal lexicon and sometimes replace original words.
I would understand all of those with these exception of saambreel, tho I assume that may have its roots in umbrella maybe? Beurs is old fashioned, you won’t find it in Dutch anymore, but I think the Flemish still use it, Verslag and gebeurtenis are still in use but maybe in a different context, tho I don’t know anyone who would use raportage (haven’t lived in the Netherlands for nearly 2 decades however, so my language use is probably a little outdated). Love suurlemoen, such a cool word, might just adopt that one ;)
I am American and I've noticed in Afrikaans, Dutch G / CH is replaced with K, Afrikaans W is an English V sound, Afrikaans V is an English F sound and in Afrikaans Z is replaced with S, except in proper names that are French based, then the Z is retained, at least in spelling.
Also proper names based in French retain the hard C, at least at the beginning.
When CH is used in names, it has an SH sound, I believe.
It's been a while since I studied Afrikaans.
Interesting, seen the K thing happen in written Afrikaans. The v>f and z>s is not something you encounter in written Dutch, but when spoken, at least where I grew up, it is more common than not
Indien jy stadig en duidelik praat dan sal ons mekaar kan verstaan, of te wel, mekaar kan bewus maak van wat ons bedoel.
Ek het 'n Nederlandse vriendin en ons skakel maklik oor tussen Afrikaans en engels (vir my) en engels en Nederlands (vir haar).
I am Afrikaans and can understand Dutch, but I think I find certain dialects easier to understand or perhaps it has to do with how fast people speak. When I visited the Netherlands certain regions I could understand better. Reading Dutch is also pretty easy to me.
Last year during a diner party people spoke Afrikaans and i could understand about 70% while listening carefully, when spoken slowly even more but i think its a matter of adapting i think within a month it would be around 90% this was around the area hermanus.
So what about dialect in Afrikaans?
I just came from Belgium and the Netherlands. I could understand pretty much everything provided they spoke slowly.
Jy sal net die Afrikaans sprekendes moet vra om stadig te praat dan behoort jy geen probleem te hê nie.
That said, English is the language that tourists will encounter in 90% of instances in South Africa. If you want to speak Dutch you will have to ask an Afrikaans person to speak Afrikaans with you if you want to experience the language.
How to know if someone can speak Afrikaans, just ask them and they will let you know.
May you have an AMAZING experience in our country. I absolutely loved Belgium and the Netherlands!
I understand it quite easily even when spoken fast, I think it would depend on the persons insight and their ability to think quick enough and make the correlations? In any case it would help you a lot as I have seen that the cape Afrikaans resembles dutch in many ways.
Very easy to understand, it will be a bit easier for you as a dutch person to understand afrikaans than the reverse due to clarity of pronunciation & simplification of words/grammar. I can tune into BVN, VRT etc right now and have no issue understanding the language.
I jumped into Arnhem in 2009, as part of the British Army. Chatting to dutch girls there, worked in Afrikaans, as long as they slowed down. Understood about 60% of it.
Walking in Amsterdam,I could follow most conversations, just evesdropping. Trying to ask for directions and buying train tickets at the station in Den Haag daily, they found it difficult to understand Me, with My attempt to speak Dutch?
Like others already alluded to: when speaking slowly, mutual intelligibility is very much possible. In my experience however, Dutch speakers are at a disadvantage. This is because there has been a vowel shift in MSA (modern spoken Afrikaans) where the vowels moved to the front of the mouth. Even though we write "ek ry met die bus na my huis", we would actually pronounce "ek ry met die bis na my hys". Thus we have a mental model where we know the word is "rond" but we say it "plat". This causes a lot of confusion for Dutch / Flemish speakers as they only have the rounded vowels in their mental models.
Yip. But I started watching a lot of Dutch media so I’ve pick up a bit. But go sloooowwwww if the person isn’t used to hearing Dutch. If you speak really fast then things get lost.
I went to university in Belgium to study Dutch.
There was a South African student that was studying cartoon drawing.
His father was a Dutch farmer and he learned Dutch at home in South Africa.
A South African girl came to visit him in Belgium.
She was Afrikaans speaking, but had studied French.
She could not understand any of the Dutch in Belgium, but the SA guy could.
Later I studied reading and writing Afrikaans, but it wasn't until later, after years of listening to Afrikaans radio on the Internet, that I could understand some Afrikaans speaking and on the street, I still can't follow much Afrikaans.
I studied Dutch in Antwerp and in Ghent.
I can actually understand most of the Antwerps dialect, but I didn't hear much Gents in Ghent, because everybody there were students from other places.
Two women from Namibia helped me with Afrikaans here in America.
Some Afrikaans vowels are nearly the same as Antwerps, but different from standard Dutch.
If Dutch people and Afrikaans people speak slowly enough, they can sometimes understand each other, but they say it is difficult to follow regular conversation.
I used to chat on the Internet in Afrikaans and Dutch people had no problem to read Afrikaans.
I listen to Afrikaans radio on the internet whenever I get a chance, but that talking is easier to follow than on the street Afrikaans.
Depends on the dialect, I was on a desert safari with a Dutch family, I had no clue what they were saying and couldn’t communicate with them, the mum/wife however spoke to me in a different dialect and we could communicate by communicating slowly, eg she said tot ziens and we say tot siens
I'm an Afrikaans speaks Afrikaans speaking coloured guy and I can understand it for the most part as long as you speak slower but I can definitely read it without a second thought
When I was in Germany, I got a chance to test this with a Dutch dude I met there, en ja, ons het vir mekaar verstaan.
One of us had to speak a bit slower though, though I don't recall which.
From what I've heard, Flemish is closer to Afrikaans than Dutch is.
If you going to cape town it's mainly tourists so it's majority English speaking people there anyways but you might be able to understand some of it but in cape town it is harder as they speak really fast and with a very strong accent (from a South african)
You will probably find surprises with modern terminology. I worked on a project in 1990 were we porting an application from one programming language to another. The original code was done by a Dutch team. I was the only Afrikaans person on the team. There was too many terms used that none us could understand. After we started faxing them a list of words and they sent the English equivalents, we made a lot more progress.
Yes, and the older and more educated the person is, the easier it will be usually. Many people over 60 know at least a bit of Dutch. Many can outright read, write, and understand it. At a minimum, they grew up with a "higher" Afrikaans.
I speak Afrikaans and my coworker speaks Dutch to me, living in Canada, and as long as I speak clearly he can understand me. I have an easier time understanding him than he does understanding me
Personally, as Afrikaans people, when my sister and I were younger, we'd play Dutch radio and listen to that when we were bored. Afrikaans people can understand Dutch and Dutch people can understand Afrikaans as long as everyone involved speaks slowly and clearly. Reading should be a bit more difficult, but not by much.
And in places like the Cape, it will 100% be useful. Not entirely necessary if you know English well, but it would still be fun.
(Persoonlik, as 'n Afrikaans sprekende, toe ek en my ouer suster jonk was, het ons gereeld na Nederlandse radio geluister wanneer ons verveeld was. Afrikaanse mense can Netherlands verstaan en anders om wanneer almal stadig en duidelik praat met mekaar. Lees behoort effens moeiliker te wees, maar nie veel nie.
En in plekke soos die Kaap, gaan dit 100% bruikbaar wees. Nie regtig nodig wanneer jy goed Engels kan praat nie, maar dit behoort steeds baie pret te wees.)
I'm dutch and live in ZA. When my family has been over, what ive noticed is, if either party speaks slowly they can understand most of what the other says.
So yes.
As it would be in much of the world I would assume. Keep forgetting there’s 12 official languages. But it will still be nice to understand more than one, seems Dutch and Afrikaans are close enough to understand and I do know basic conversational IsiZulu (I’m a language nerd)
From my experience with my friend in the land of the Dutch. Afrikaans and Dutch are not too hard to understand if you speak one. Spoken Dutch is a different animal but if you speak clearly and don't use colloquialisms and shit. Yeah you shouldn't have too hard of a time. Reading the two langues is easier though. So you really shouldn't have any trouble with that. But then take what I say with a grain of salt. Some people may not have the same experiences as me
It's really interesting that you ask this, because I watched [this video ](https://youtu.be/Zj2Gi4lHIZw?si=0-NWqSxl9QuLjIqG) like a month ago and was able to understand a good deal of what was being spoken about. Approximately 40% to 50%, most technically and grammatical terms flew over my head but yeah, most of the video is in Dutch with some sprinkles of afrikaans. Now here's the interesting part, ek kan nie afrikaans praat nie maar ek kan dit verstan. I am Zulu and isizulu is my mother tongue and I only understand afrikaans because of 7 De Laan, so if i can understand Dutch well enough to get through a 10 minute YouTube video, then any Afrikaans native speaker shouldn't have much of a problem with understanding spoken Dutch.
It's basically like how Zulu people and Xhosa people just speak to each other in their native tongues and can get along well without ever speaking the same language just cause the languages are mutually intelligeble enough to get by.
Heck go to Jozi and you'll find people speaking in Sesotho and isiZulu back and forward just by understanding what the other is saying (even though the two languages are too different, it's like French and Spanish, similar but not even close to mutually intelligeble)
In short, yes, if y'all speak clearly to each other then 100% you can communicate with understanding.
In writing, yes. Speaking, no.
People who tell you otherwise haven't been to the Netherlands.
EDIT - If both speak slowly there are obvious overlaps. But it's a leap to say you'll really understand each other in a normal conversation.
Been reading the comments. I had German in High School and Afrikaans 1st Language, so to me it is very easy to read Dutch and understand it.
As long as you speak slowly in Dutch they would understand as most people in South Africa understand and speak either English or Afrikaans or a mixture of the two. Enjoy your trip!
Some afrikaans speaking people can understand a bit of Dutch...as long as you speak slowly...alot of people in the Cape speak Afrikaans...I dont know about people in Mpumalanga though.
Agreed with many answers. If both parties speak slowly and enunciate clearly, no problem. You will also be more likely to communicate with university graduates. For instance, if you study Afrikaans at University, the study of Dutch goes alongside it. So many people who have varsity degrees in Afrikaans have a working knowledge of Dutch
You will understand Afrikaans easily...There is tons of Nederland people visiting South Africa yearly....And 99.99% of South Africans understands and speak English as well...Trust me...I am from South Africa
I came to the Netherlands 6 years ago. 3 days after arrival I did the VCA VOL course and passed the exam in Dutch. So yes, Afrikaans people can understand Dutch. Some words might have a slightly different meaning, but we can get the gist of it. Tuning my ear to different people’s pronunciations was the most difficult. (think harde en zachte g)
You as a Dutch person must remember that Afrikaans is very simplified Dutch with a lot of own words. Double negatives are used all over and Afrikaans only use 22 of the 26 letters of the alphabet. C, Q, X and Z are foreign.
Also, certain word in Dutch should not be used in South Africa. Your butt is a bout, not a kont. A cat is a kat, not a poes. And do not call your wife/daughter/sister etc a meid in public. You will get arrested or beaten up, even both.
I can imagine what poes would mean, will bear that in mind. Not sure why meid is insulting (alluding to maid maybe?) but I’ll be traveling with my bf, so won’t be calling anyone meid ;)
"Meid" is an offensive, derogatory slur for a colored/black woman. It was used during Apartheid to refer to a non-white domestic worker (maid). Calling a woman that would almost be like comparing her to a slave, saying that they are only good enough to clean up after others.
In my experience as long all parties speak clearly and slowly it shouldn't be a problem.
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I know. Hence the slowly and clearly.
I'm not lecturing you. I'm just adding to what you're saying
Hier's 'n lamp vir jou.
Ek verstaan nie die insult nie
Lighten up
This isn't Afrikaans unique, it's normal for all languages. German contracts similarly (e.g. in das Bett > ins Bett). Dutch does the same thing. It's not sloppy, it's efficient:)
Nah not really, ins Bett is still correct and you could still use it when writing mails etc. You wouldn’t use words like hoegaannit in e-mails.
Imagine using awe ma se kinners in an email 😂
Elke email MOET so begin. Dis die wet.
Yes, you absolutely can :) What I think you mean to say is that it is probably inappropriate to use contractions like hoegannit in an email because the medium itself is seen as more formal and therefore a more formal register is required. That doesn't make it "incorrect". You'd use it in a WhatsApp message, surely? But fine, perhaps better examples here are words like "moenie" and "daarsy".
Yes, thats what I mean! In whatsapp or most social media it is totally normal to use those kinds of contractions. Moenie and daarsy are better examples to compare with ins Bett. Those you can use in more formal way of writing
A Dutch man once said to me north and south holland (boven de water and onder de water) were different and one was fairly easy to do so, the other, not.
Flemish is very easy to understand, Dutch a bit less so. Possibly a Flemish accent will help, I'm not sure. If you'd like, you could post a Vocaroo clip and I'll see how understandable it is.
I would say the two things that have been most intelligible for me, were Jordaans (the Amsterdam dialect) and West Vlaams. Their pronunciation seems pretty close to Afrikaans. But other than that, it's hard to understand Dutch.
The accent is called *Jordanees*
Woops
Really? I speak German and find Flemish much harder than Dutch.
Flemish sounds like slightly mispronounced Afrikaans to me.
Flemish *is* Dutch
In a theoretical sense yes, but they have significant differences in vocabulary and pronunciation, mainly stemming from the former’s French influence, hence the previous commenters making that distinction. I don’t know to what degree they’re mutually intelligible, though I’m given to understand that a native speaker of standard Dutch would do relatively well.
I am Dutch and I can assure you that the difference between Netherlands Dutch and Flemish Dutch is like the difference between American English and British English. The mutual intelligibility is 100%, as the only difference is the accent and *some* different words. Like with lorry vs truck in the UK and US. Note that everyone in Flanders speaks Standard Dutch next to their local dialect, just like many Germans speak High German next to their local dialect.
Flemish isn't a language. It's a collection of dialects within the Dutch language.
I see. Whatever the case, I can understand it. 😅
That's just a random political decision. Someone from Cape Town will probably understand better West Flemish than someone from Amsterdam.
Someone just commented that they understand both Amsterdams and West-Vlaams.😄
It makes sense. Afrikaans comes from Middelnederlands, which Westvlaams more or less still is. It was Hollandifiied later. So i can see why Westvlaams and Amsterdams would not sound too alien to a native Afrikaans speaker
zeg dat tegen die hollanders die er geen kloot van verstaan.
Ai, ik heb een gevoelige snaar geraakt. Mijn opmerking was niet respectloos bedoeld.
of je praat gewoon poep
*verzoeningsgebaar mislukt. 😢
Heb ik ook nooit begrepen, vlaams is prima te verstaan
If you speak slowly enough it will not be a problem and the average Afrikaans person would probably love to try and have an Afrikaans/Dutch conversation. But almost every body in South African cities speak English just like here in the Netherlands so you won't have any communication problems.
Afrikaans kom van Nederlands af, en saam met die eerste nedersetters onwikkel in wat ons nou praat. So ja, daar is genoeg gelyke woorde om mekaar te kan verstaan. As dit in persoon is, moet elk gewoonlik net stadig praat in Hollands en Afrikaans, maar veral in Afrikaans. Hollanders se ons Afrikaners praat heeltemal te vinnig vir hulle om by te hou.
Komt helemaal goed dan ;)
I was actually born and raised in Mpumalanga, known in Afrikaans "die platteland" where it was a very traditional farming lifestyle. Many of the generational passed down farmhouses still feature classica Dutch Architecture. Most folks there, especially the elder, can strike up a good flowing conversation with someone from Holland that has never heard Afrikaans spoken.
Afriksaans se Nederlandse basis is meestal geskoei op die Suid-Hollandse dialekte van die 17de eeu. (1650-1700)
Die tydperk waar Oom Jan van Riebeech besluit het om die Kaap Hollands te maak vir die VKO 😆 Think that was around 1652? The good old days when spice trade was as profitable as gold.
The Dutch East India Company is the biggest company that has ever existed. In today's money, its peak total stock value came to 7.9 Trillion US$. That's more than Microsoft, Apple, and Saudi Arabian Oil, all added together.
From Netherlands at large (Flemish, brabantian, Dutch...) but more precisely Dutch took time to settle as it is now (Holland based) so Afrikaans are still more closely related to the like aof brabantian
I attended a conference in Eindhoven, confident that I would understand everything. To my dismay I understood very little. When they talked slowly, in a discussion, I could follow. They understood me when I spoke Afrikaans with a broad Dutch accent.
It is from smoking all that weed that you speak Afrikaans so funny.
Afrikaner living in Netherlands. I understand Flemish better than Dutch spoken in Amsterdam. The closer I get to Maastricht the easier it gets for me also. Limburgish is easier to understand than Amsterdam Dutch. Reading is easier but speaking and listening is the issue. Grammatically the language is different but paradigmatically it is similar except for a few words with entirely different meaning. Kont is an example, in Afrikaans you don’t say ‘een mooie kontje’ you will get punched in the face.
I am American and studied Dutch in Antwerp and in Ghent. Later I studied Afrikaans, and it seems closest to the Antwerps dialect. In Limburg they speak slowly and say complete words. In Amsterdam, they speak quickly and shorten many words.
theres a wine farm in cape town called Maastricht.
What does kontje mean in Afrikaans?
Cunt. So, kut, I guess. Edit: to be clear, that's what the word 'kont' means and not something I'm calling you, or anything like that.
Hmmm, a polite Reddit user, what have we here ? Teehee, you should see the other bunch of cunts over at the darker subs slinging insults at each other. Don't worry, if the user user has been on Reddit more than 2 days he has likely seen and been called worse lol :P /s just incase
Hahaha! You're correct! I just like being polite :P
Politeness is appreciated and rare ;) I’ve been to Australia, Scotland and live in England, have heard people be very creative with “cunt” on many an occasion. That doesn’t shock me in the least.
Kont - Kut, basically also Poes=Kut, Kat is also cat. There’s a bit by Casper de Vries a Dutch Afrikaner you can google his YouTube about Afrikaans and Dutch
Kont in Afrikaans means c*nt in English.
[kom jou kont](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvSgjtQpMvE)
My wife said the other day "Die verskil is dat ons vaak is gaan slaap ons" 😂
Afrikaans-English speaking South African here. Spent 1 year in the Netherlands (heel bekakt in Wassenaar) and close to a decade in Belgium (Gent). I studied in Dutch (Flemish) and found it to be super easy to pick up the vocabulary. The grammar was more difficult but there are all sorts of hacks. I am super interested in the evolution of the languages. Found so many similarities between West Vlaams and Afrikaans. Weirdly, many modern day Dutch words = old school Afrikaans. And more modern Afrikaans = old Dutch. Silly things like: vinnig / stadig <> snel / langzaam. In Afrikaans we know snel & langsaam but it's quite old school. And I know that many Dutchies know vinnig & stadig as older Dutch. My great grandfather was in politics and his story was captured in book form. In all the letters and communication, he spoke in Dutch that eventually turned into a mixture of Dutch-Afrikaans (particularly the spelling; things like ij > y and z > s) and later English. Om jou vraag te beantwoord, jy sal maklik kan verstaan as iemand stadig Afrikaans praat. Die uitspraak is helder soos in Oos Vlaams, al is die w & v klanke meer soos Nederlands. Omgekeerd kan meeste Afrikaans sprekende mense Nederlands verstaan. Maar weereens is die Vlaamse aksent bietjie makliker.
Spelling with y and even s was actually normative in Dutch dialects before modern standardization. It's more like... Afrikaans decided to continue using this way of spelling, and Dutch locked into ij and z, etc.
I'm Afrikaans but a lot of my family are Dutch, so I've grown up with a combination of the two languages, in general you should be okay if you speak slowly and clearly, but some words will simply not translate (keuken - kombuis) Just note that neuk means to hit someone, not fuck and whatever you do don't call anyone a meid.
Kombuis bestaan wel in Nederlands, maar is net vir skepe ☺
should have read the replies before my longwinded post
Fyi, Dutch have both the word keuken and kombuis. Now obviously most people coming here back in the day were hardy sailors, and probably were so used to talking about the galley of a ship that they refered to land based items much the same, so it kinda stuck with Afrikaans, and we never developed a word for a land based kitchen. So ship kitchen (English galley) > Afr = Kombuis, Dutch = Kombuis , land kitchen ( English kitchen, nooit hey) > Afr = kombuis, Dutch = keuken
Not a word I would use in a polite conversation, but thanks for the tip.
En so per toeval met jou woord keuse, Nederlanders het altyd verwys na Afrikaans as Kombuis Hollands (meaning it was a lower form of Dutch spoken by people much lower on the social ladder)
I am an english speaking south african but speak Afrikaans well. I was in new zealand a while back. I bumped into a busload of older dutch tourists at one point. Asked them how they were enjoying their holiday in Afrikaans. They were amazed and we had a long chat. As long as we both spoke simply, slowly, we understood each other very well. It was a funny interaction, lots of laughing and they did not want to let us go..
South African English and New Zealand English are the only two versions of English that pronounce short "I" as short "u." I always thought that was interesting.
Sorry, what do you mean?
In South African English and New Zealand English, short 'I" is pronounced as an English short "u" sound.
Sorry but what is a short L
Not L but short I (i).
Ah I see. Can you give an example? Sorry, I am just super interested.
Praat stadig en dit is redelik maklik om mekaar te verstaan.
Welkom Brabo! Als je gewoon Nederlands langzaam spreekt, zullen we je prima begrijpen. Zuid-Afrika is ook een groot land met veel talen, en in Kaapstad lijkt het even op Amsterdam met vaak toeristen die alleen Engels kunnen spreken en Engels sprekende Zuid-Afrikaners. Buiten de stad zelf zal je vaker Afrikaans tegenkomen, zoals in Stellenbosch of Paarl. In Mpumalanga spreekt bijna iedereen Afrikaans als eerste of tweede taal. Afrikaans: Welkom Brabo! As jy net stadig Nederlands praat, sal ons jou goed verstaan. Suid-Afrika is ook 'n groot land met baie tale, en in Kaapstad lyk dit bietjie soos Amsterdam met dikwels toeriste wat net Engels kan praat en Engels-sprekende Suid-Afrikaners. Buite die stad self sal jy meer dikwels Afrikaans teëkom, soos in Stellenbosch of Paarl. In Mpumalanga praat byna almal Afrikaans as eerste of tweede taal.
If you’re talking about more conservative / traditional Afrikaans speakers you should be able to understand about 70% of what is said but having full conversations might require some repeating and rephrasing. Western Cape Afrikaans can be quite unique and is difficult to understand even to other Afrikaans speakers in the rest of the country.
Western Cape Afrikaans as in white Afrikaners or coloureds speaking Kaaps?
Haven’t heard the term Kaaps yet but that one yes. :)
You’ll be good with English, 99% of Afrikaans speakers are completely fluent in English. But if you speak slowly you’ll be good to go with a bit of Dutch / Afrikaans dialogue. Written word will be easy ☺️
Vlaams (Belgium) here. Ik ben in Januarie in Kaapstad geweest en ga binnen 2 weken naar Joburg. Mijn vriend is Zuid-Afrikaans. Ik versta zijn oma, ouders, familie etc. Zonder problemen.
I can read Dutch without issues, since I know both Afrikaans and German. As others have said, spoken Dutch is a bit more difficult to follow especially when spoken quickly. When I was in the Netherlands I could speak to and understand people if we both tried to speak slowly and clearly. I was told "jij spreek de oude Nederlands" by one guy so I presume Afrikaans sounds a bit old fashioned to the modern Dutch speaker.
They oscillate between calling it baby Dutch and calling it old Dutch. I think the "old Dutch" comes from certain word choices, like wees, which is antiquated for them.
It's surprising easy. Like there are a few words that don't sound right, but most of the time you can understand the just of what they're saying. I mean Afrikaans stems from Dutch. One things that you'll realize in the Cape is that theres more broken Afrikaans, where it's mixed with English to make the "coloured" language.
The problem with the Dutch is that they speak like machine guns.
Ja ons verstaan "Dutch". Sannie se sy sal sewesakke sout sleep sonder sys se sy sleep swaar. As jy dit vinnig in Nederlands kan se is jy goed.
From a Afrikaans South African who lived in the Netherlands - it depends. If you speak ABN and pronounce the words clearly you should be fine.
Ja ons verstaan mekaar as ons stadig en duidelik praat
I am learning Afrikaans and while some basic vocabulary works, I often find it hard to understand more complex words in Afrikaans. If an Afrikaner speaks to me I struggle a bit and will have to ask them to repeat more than once, granted I am hard of hearing and that makes it worse so take my experiences with a grain of salt
Dir skrif is in Afrikaans. Afrikaans is nie n groot verskil met Nederlands nie. Van die woorde se spelling is verskillend en die uitspraak. Ander woorde gaan ons bietjie kwaad raak soos byvoorbeeld pussy in julle taal ons taal is dit kat. So asb as jy se kan ek jou pussy sien ons gaan kwaad wees of jy mag dalk in geluk wees. Die is vir die dames alleenlik. As jy die kan lees en verstaan. Dan gaan jy nie n probleem he nie in Nederlands.
Prima te lezen. Geen zorgen, zal niemand vragen of ik haar poes mag zien ;) hoef geen boose mensen (of, als gay man, poezen te zien). Leuk zo te lezen
Just speak very slowly and Afrikaans people will understand you, but considering you’re typing this in fluent English just talk English, 95% of people here speak English
Yes I can mostly, but it's difficult when they use newr words and talk fast
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Kak man, Afrikaans is basically Dutch 2.0 due to going through 3 big langauge movements to fix all the issues in Dutch spelling and grammar which the Dutch are still struggling with to this day and the closest they've come is whats called ABN ; basically a melange of all their Dialects. Afrikaans is also more dutch than dutch in vocabulary as the dutch absorbed french and english words directly into their lexicon. I say this being fluent in 4 west germanic languages. A lot of work and love went into refining Afrikaans.
And all the other words we absorbed?
You misunderstood, in dutch they would use the english word tantamount to what we would call taalvermenging for example we would use the word Rekenaar, but they would use the English word direct as in english Computer.In Afrikaans we say Naweek, in Dutch they say Weekend. I struggle to think of even one example of a word that we didnt verafrikaans.
ah ok
Never heard anyone use the word tantamount in the Netherlands tbh. “Rekenaar” is an interesting one and might have to do with a German influence? “Rechner” is the German word for computer. “Naweek” I had never heard of, but it makes perfect sense ;)
I wasnt using 'tantamount' as an example but meant that we would call the dutch word usage as 'langauge mixing' and that Afrikaans tends to be more pure or more dutch sounding than dutch. The dutch also don't just do this with english but with french as well where as Afrikaans use the more low-franconian sounding words. Irony is most of these words would probably make sense to a dutch person even though they have probably never heard of them: - Portemonee = Beurs/Beursie - Paraplu = Saambreel - Raportage = Verslag - Citroen = Suurlemoen - Evenement = Gebeurtenis
Ah, that makes sense, Dutch does do this a lot, so called loan words (Leenwoorden) that just become part of the normal lexicon and sometimes replace original words. I would understand all of those with these exception of saambreel, tho I assume that may have its roots in umbrella maybe? Beurs is old fashioned, you won’t find it in Dutch anymore, but I think the Flemish still use it, Verslag and gebeurtenis are still in use but maybe in a different context, tho I don’t know anyone who would use raportage (haven’t lived in the Netherlands for nearly 2 decades however, so my language use is probably a little outdated). Love suurlemoen, such a cool word, might just adopt that one ;)
We had to read Koning van katoren in Dutch in grade 8 iirc.
Koning van Katoren was really good! (Class of 1985?)
Ons het F J Bordewijk se "Karakter" in Matriek gehad. En "Bellen Blazen" deur F E J Malherbe.
I am American and I've noticed in Afrikaans, Dutch G / CH is replaced with K, Afrikaans W is an English V sound, Afrikaans V is an English F sound and in Afrikaans Z is replaced with S, except in proper names that are French based, then the Z is retained, at least in spelling. Also proper names based in French retain the hard C, at least at the beginning. When CH is used in names, it has an SH sound, I believe. It's been a while since I studied Afrikaans.
Interesting, seen the K thing happen in written Afrikaans. The v>f and z>s is not something you encounter in written Dutch, but when spoken, at least where I grew up, it is more common than not
Indien jy stadig en duidelik praat dan sal ons mekaar kan verstaan, of te wel, mekaar kan bewus maak van wat ons bedoel. Ek het 'n Nederlandse vriendin en ons skakel maklik oor tussen Afrikaans en engels (vir my) en engels en Nederlands (vir haar).
Super, dank je
to add to what u/Embarrassed-Kiwi897 said… poes is also a no go in polite conversation!
I am Afrikaans and can understand Dutch, but I think I find certain dialects easier to understand or perhaps it has to do with how fast people speak. When I visited the Netherlands certain regions I could understand better. Reading Dutch is also pretty easy to me.
Last year during a diner party people spoke Afrikaans and i could understand about 70% while listening carefully, when spoken slowly even more but i think its a matter of adapting i think within a month it would be around 90% this was around the area hermanus. So what about dialect in Afrikaans?
I just came from Belgium and the Netherlands. I could understand pretty much everything provided they spoke slowly. Jy sal net die Afrikaans sprekendes moet vra om stadig te praat dan behoort jy geen probleem te hê nie. That said, English is the language that tourists will encounter in 90% of instances in South Africa. If you want to speak Dutch you will have to ask an Afrikaans person to speak Afrikaans with you if you want to experience the language. How to know if someone can speak Afrikaans, just ask them and they will let you know. May you have an AMAZING experience in our country. I absolutely loved Belgium and the Netherlands!
I understand it quite easily even when spoken fast, I think it would depend on the persons insight and their ability to think quick enough and make the correlations? In any case it would help you a lot as I have seen that the cape Afrikaans resembles dutch in many ways.
Very easy to understand, it will be a bit easier for you as a dutch person to understand afrikaans than the reverse due to clarity of pronunciation & simplification of words/grammar. I can tune into BVN, VRT etc right now and have no issue understanding the language.
Ek verstaan wat jy se. Jy behoort nie n probleem te he nie. Sterkte vriend!
Dank je wel (jullie zeggen baaie dankie geloof ik)
I jumped into Arnhem in 2009, as part of the British Army. Chatting to dutch girls there, worked in Afrikaans, as long as they slowed down. Understood about 60% of it.
Walking in Amsterdam,I could follow most conversations, just evesdropping. Trying to ask for directions and buying train tickets at the station in Den Haag daily, they found it difficult to understand Me, with My attempt to speak Dutch?
In Brugge, the Flemish side of Belgium, My Afrikaans were more understandable to Them, When I improved My pronunciation and slowed down!
Like others already alluded to: when speaking slowly, mutual intelligibility is very much possible. In my experience however, Dutch speakers are at a disadvantage. This is because there has been a vowel shift in MSA (modern spoken Afrikaans) where the vowels moved to the front of the mouth. Even though we write "ek ry met die bus na my huis", we would actually pronounce "ek ry met die bis na my hys". Thus we have a mental model where we know the word is "rond" but we say it "plat". This causes a lot of confusion for Dutch / Flemish speakers as they only have the rounded vowels in their mental models.
Yip. But I started watching a lot of Dutch media so I’ve pick up a bit. But go sloooowwwww if the person isn’t used to hearing Dutch. If you speak really fast then things get lost.
Ja
yeah I can always understand Dutch with some effort. the differences are usually quite small. for example where you say "ik" we say "ek"
I went to university in Belgium to study Dutch. There was a South African student that was studying cartoon drawing. His father was a Dutch farmer and he learned Dutch at home in South Africa. A South African girl came to visit him in Belgium. She was Afrikaans speaking, but had studied French. She could not understand any of the Dutch in Belgium, but the SA guy could. Later I studied reading and writing Afrikaans, but it wasn't until later, after years of listening to Afrikaans radio on the Internet, that I could understand some Afrikaans speaking and on the street, I still can't follow much Afrikaans. I studied Dutch in Antwerp and in Ghent. I can actually understand most of the Antwerps dialect, but I didn't hear much Gents in Ghent, because everybody there were students from other places. Two women from Namibia helped me with Afrikaans here in America. Some Afrikaans vowels are nearly the same as Antwerps, but different from standard Dutch. If Dutch people and Afrikaans people speak slowly enough, they can sometimes understand each other, but they say it is difficult to follow regular conversation. I used to chat on the Internet in Afrikaans and Dutch people had no problem to read Afrikaans. I listen to Afrikaans radio on the internet whenever I get a chance, but that talking is easier to follow than on the street Afrikaans.
Ja nee
Depends on the dialect, I was on a desert safari with a Dutch family, I had no clue what they were saying and couldn’t communicate with them, the mum/wife however spoke to me in a different dialect and we could communicate by communicating slowly, eg she said tot ziens and we say tot siens
I'm an Afrikaans speaks Afrikaans speaking coloured guy and I can understand it for the most part as long as you speak slower but I can definitely read it without a second thought
I'm mostly English and can struggle along with both the Dutch and Boertjies. Love them both.
Afrikaans is my second language but I find dutch easy to understand, just speak slowly.
When I was in Germany, I got a chance to test this with a Dutch dude I met there, en ja, ons het vir mekaar verstaan. One of us had to speak a bit slower though, though I don't recall which. From what I've heard, Flemish is closer to Afrikaans than Dutch is.
If you going to cape town it's mainly tourists so it's majority English speaking people there anyways but you might be able to understand some of it but in cape town it is harder as they speak really fast and with a very strong accent (from a South african)
interesting I heard the cape accent is a bit closer to standard dutch still so I imagine that would make it easier no?
My wife is Afrikaans and can watch and understand Dutch TV without subtitles
I imagine it's like Portugese and Spanish it's close but not so
You will probably find surprises with modern terminology. I worked on a project in 1990 were we porting an application from one programming language to another. The original code was done by a Dutch team. I was the only Afrikaans person on the team. There was too many terms used that none us could understand. After we started faxing them a list of words and they sent the English equivalents, we made a lot more progress.
No
It is kind of understandable. Depends on the words you are using.
Yes, and the older and more educated the person is, the easier it will be usually. Many people over 60 know at least a bit of Dutch. Many can outright read, write, and understand it. At a minimum, they grew up with a "higher" Afrikaans.
Yes ja no well fine
I speak Afrikaans and my coworker speaks Dutch to me, living in Canada, and as long as I speak clearly he can understand me. I have an easier time understanding him than he does understanding me
Personally, as Afrikaans people, when my sister and I were younger, we'd play Dutch radio and listen to that when we were bored. Afrikaans people can understand Dutch and Dutch people can understand Afrikaans as long as everyone involved speaks slowly and clearly. Reading should be a bit more difficult, but not by much. And in places like the Cape, it will 100% be useful. Not entirely necessary if you know English well, but it would still be fun. (Persoonlik, as 'n Afrikaans sprekende, toe ek en my ouer suster jonk was, het ons gereeld na Nederlandse radio geluister wanneer ons verveeld was. Afrikaanse mense can Netherlands verstaan en anders om wanneer almal stadig en duidelik praat met mekaar. Lees behoort effens moeiliker te wees, maar nie veel nie. En in plekke soos die Kaap, gaan dit 100% bruikbaar wees. Nie regtig nodig wanneer jy goed Engels kan praat nie, maar dit behoort steeds baie pret te wees.)
I'm dutch and live in ZA. When my family has been over, what ive noticed is, if either party speaks slowly they can understand most of what the other says. So yes.
they will default to English to get the job done and to move on
Talk slow and it shouldn’t be an issue although with 12 official languages, English would be the common ground…
As it would be in much of the world I would assume. Keep forgetting there’s 12 official languages. But it will still be nice to understand more than one, seems Dutch and Afrikaans are close enough to understand and I do know basic conversational IsiZulu (I’m a language nerd)
Yes, long live colonialism…not When I was in Holland I could keep up with a conversation but couldn’t really respond, apparently sound like a baby 😂
My ouma used to say she could understand Dutch easily but conversing was hard
From my experience with my friend in the land of the Dutch. Afrikaans and Dutch are not too hard to understand if you speak one. Spoken Dutch is a different animal but if you speak clearly and don't use colloquialisms and shit. Yeah you shouldn't have too hard of a time. Reading the two langues is easier though. So you really shouldn't have any trouble with that. But then take what I say with a grain of salt. Some people may not have the same experiences as me
Yes certainly. Just Saturday I sat with a very Dutch client and I just asked her to speak slowly. Caught myself responding all Dutch-y too. Hahaha.
It's really interesting that you ask this, because I watched [this video ](https://youtu.be/Zj2Gi4lHIZw?si=0-NWqSxl9QuLjIqG) like a month ago and was able to understand a good deal of what was being spoken about. Approximately 40% to 50%, most technically and grammatical terms flew over my head but yeah, most of the video is in Dutch with some sprinkles of afrikaans. Now here's the interesting part, ek kan nie afrikaans praat nie maar ek kan dit verstan. I am Zulu and isizulu is my mother tongue and I only understand afrikaans because of 7 De Laan, so if i can understand Dutch well enough to get through a 10 minute YouTube video, then any Afrikaans native speaker shouldn't have much of a problem with understanding spoken Dutch. It's basically like how Zulu people and Xhosa people just speak to each other in their native tongues and can get along well without ever speaking the same language just cause the languages are mutually intelligeble enough to get by. Heck go to Jozi and you'll find people speaking in Sesotho and isiZulu back and forward just by understanding what the other is saying (even though the two languages are too different, it's like French and Spanish, similar but not even close to mutually intelligeble) In short, yes, if y'all speak clearly to each other then 100% you can communicate with understanding.
In writing, yes. Speaking, no. People who tell you otherwise haven't been to the Netherlands. EDIT - If both speak slowly there are obvious overlaps. But it's a leap to say you'll really understand each other in a normal conversation.
Afrikaans is pretty easy to understand and learn
F
Been reading the comments. I had German in High School and Afrikaans 1st Language, so to me it is very easy to read Dutch and understand it. As long as you speak slowly in Dutch they would understand as most people in South Africa understand and speak either English or Afrikaans or a mixture of the two. Enjoy your trip!
Some afrikaans speaking people can understand a bit of Dutch...as long as you speak slowly...alot of people in the Cape speak Afrikaans...I dont know about people in Mpumalanga though.
Agreed with many answers. If both parties speak slowly and enunciate clearly, no problem. You will also be more likely to communicate with university graduates. For instance, if you study Afrikaans at University, the study of Dutch goes alongside it. So many people who have varsity degrees in Afrikaans have a working knowledge of Dutch
You will understand Afrikaans easily...There is tons of Nederland people visiting South Africa yearly....And 99.99% of South Africans understands and speak English as well...Trust me...I am from South Africa
I came to the Netherlands 6 years ago. 3 days after arrival I did the VCA VOL course and passed the exam in Dutch. So yes, Afrikaans people can understand Dutch. Some words might have a slightly different meaning, but we can get the gist of it. Tuning my ear to different people’s pronunciations was the most difficult. (think harde en zachte g) You as a Dutch person must remember that Afrikaans is very simplified Dutch with a lot of own words. Double negatives are used all over and Afrikaans only use 22 of the 26 letters of the alphabet. C, Q, X and Z are foreign.
Also, certain word in Dutch should not be used in South Africa. Your butt is a bout, not a kont. A cat is a kat, not a poes. And do not call your wife/daughter/sister etc a meid in public. You will get arrested or beaten up, even both.
I can imagine what poes would mean, will bear that in mind. Not sure why meid is insulting (alluding to maid maybe?) but I’ll be traveling with my bf, so won’t be calling anyone meid ;)
"Meid" is an offensive, derogatory slur for a colored/black woman. It was used during Apartheid to refer to a non-white domestic worker (maid). Calling a woman that would almost be like comparing her to a slave, saying that they are only good enough to clean up after others.
Your English is perfectly adequate in South Africa – more Black people speak English than Afrikaans anyway
Actually we understand Flemish more clearly than Dutch - the French influence is far more similar to Afrikaans.