The official 'Learn Afrikaans' thread™

wbot said:
Sometimes English words just work or flow better. Like live show instead of "lewende/lewendige optrede/vertoning" which no one in my circles ever use lol.
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Don't you think it is because English is all pervasive, especially in SA because that is one of the main languages of everyday communication in most of the places here ?

I mean I found Afrikaans word order difficult to get used to but that is only because my world is dominated by English speaking people. Flow is part of environment. I can't talk for Afrikaans of course but generally, older generation anywhere is happy to use words that would sound arcane to current generation.
 
Sideshow Bob said:
Crazy, I never heard of this in any of the YouTuber videos and everyone of them is native afrikaans speaker. They all say 'Hoe laat is dit'.
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My Afrikaans is not great but this is one thing I remember from school. We were taught that "wat is die tyd" was wrong and "hoe laat is dit" was correct. :oops:
 
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Sideshow Bob said:
Don't you think it is because English is all pervasive, especially in SA because that is one of the main languages of everyday communication in most of the places here ?

I mean I found Afrikaans word order difficult to get used to but that is only because my world is dominated by English speaking people. Flow is part of environment. I can't talk for Afrikaans of course but generally, older generation anywhere is happy to use words that would sound arcane to current generation.
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I guess so. Black people in SA also use English words when they speak in their languages. Or they borrow Afrikaans words and sometimes we borrow some of their expressions etc. The beauty of a multilingual society I guess.
 
wbot said:
I guess so. Black people in SA also use English words when they speak in their languages. Or they borrow Afrikaans words and sometimes we borrow some of their expressions etc. The beauty of a multilingual society I guess.
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yes. My colleagues say they basically speak Tsotsitaal to talk to others and their own language is slowly being taken over by English too. That is worldwide phenomenon really.
 
Sideshow Bob said:
Have you studied Afrikaans and/or Dutch yourself ? School curriculum doesn't count because as per talks I frequently have with parents of my son's friends, they barely survived. LOL.
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heard enough dutch to deduce its dutch but its own dialect, some would say broken.
there is even some Afrikaans spoken in Argentina apparently

Patagonian Afrikaans - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
Sideshow Bob said:
yes. My colleagues say they basically speak Tsotsitaal to talk to others and their own language is slowly being taken over by English too. That is worldwide phenomenon really.
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Mengels in Afrikaans :p

Personally I try to keep my Afrikaans as Afrikaans as possible lol. Not a fan of too much mengels.
 
Jet-Fighter7700 said:
there is even some Afrikaans spoken in Argentina apparently

Patagonian Afrikaans - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
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Yes, was watching Voetspore recently and they visited those communities. Was very weird seeing a bunch of hispanics talking nothing but Afrikaans but it was fascinating and beautiful at the same time.

There's a new doccie just about them from the Voetspore team:

terloops.co.za

Nuwe kykNET-dokkiereeks vertel verhaal van 'Die Boere van Patagonië'

’n Byna vergete hoofstuk van Afrikaner-geskiedenis kry nuwe lewe in die dokumentêre reeks 'Die Boere van Patagonië', eersdaags op kykNET.
terloops.co.za terloops.co.za
 
Sideshow Bob said:
Crazy, I never heard of this in any of the YouTuber videos and everyone of them is native afrikaans speaker. They all say 'Hoe laat is dit'.

Now I am beginning to doubt those YTers.
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No, you are correct.

To ask the time, the natural way would be: "Hoe laat is dit?".

However, asking "Hoe is die tyd" would be like asking "how is the wellbeing of the time",
 
Sideshow Bob said:
Crazy, I never heard of this in any of the YouTuber videos and everyone of them is native afrikaans speaker. They all say 'Hoe laat is dit'.

Now I am beginning to doubt those YTers.
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Both "hoe laat is dit" and "wat is die tyd" are correct. Never heard anyone saying "hoe is die tyd".
 
"Hoe is die tyd?" directly translates to "How is the time?" - I've never heard anyone say that.

"Wat is die tyd?" translates to "What is the time?" - which is better, but as others have said, the 100% correct version is "Hoe laat is dit?"
 
wbot said:
Both "hoe laat is dit" and "wat is die tyd" are correct. Never heard anyone saying "hoe is die tyd".
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Since my post, I talked to 6-7 Afrikaans colleagues and everyone said they have never used 'Wat is die tyd'.

And dutch has "Hoe laat is het?" so that kind of confirms what is right. Afrikaans evolved from Dutch dialects afaik.
 
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