- A HiccupLife has this awful little habit of getting in the way of things we most want to do or accomplish. I experienced that the past two weeks. Not only was I working more days in a row than I would normally (thus resulting in having less energy for recreational activities), I also had a long …
- Utilizing Voice MessagesWhen I first started this quest to learn Afrikaans, I obviously didn’t know anything. I didn’t know any words, phrases, cultural references, etc. So much of what I have learned has been listening to audio messages. I never really used audio messages before this, so it was a bit strange to get used to listening …
- My Biggest Pronunciation IssuesWhen learning any language, correct pronunciation of words is crucial for clear communication and fluency. In Afrikaans, there are some sounds that we just don’t make in English! The first one is the “r” trilling sound. This is also known as “rolling your r’s”. Yea, I definitely cannot do that. I have heard there are …
- Struggles Using TinderRelinquishing trust to another person can be difficult, even if you know that person really well. I definitely struggle with this and want to feel in control a lot of the time. Learning Afrikaans has required me to place my trust in people that I don’t personally know and have never even met. No one …
- Verlede Tyd (Past Tense) PracticeThe last two weeks I have been focusing on conjugating sentences into past tense. The concept is pretty simple, but then there are (like in English) special cases where things are a bit different. To allow my learning time to be the most effective, I would go through a few different things per exercise. Read …
- Why Afrikaans?Initially, it was really difficult for me to distinguish the reasons why I liked Afrikaans so much. As I started talking to more Afrikaans speaking people, it slowly became apparent why I enjoyed this language so much. The first thing that appealed to me (which came from that initial Tinder date) was how masculine it …
- Progress CheckToday I was doing some practicing with changing present tense sentences to past tense. I struggled on a few of the ones in my werkboek because I was unaware of some of the “special cases” (these include sal to sou, wil to wou, etc.) and because translations were difficult or incomprehensive. In this exercise, I …
- Learning Afrikaans from America, Part 2Practice makes perfect. This mantra is used regularly when people are struggling to learn or master something. Language learning requires this probably more than just about anything else (except maybe math?). Meeting people was easier than I thought it would be, and I was surprised (still am even now) how excited people get when I …
- Learning Afrikaans from America, Part 1Learning a new language is difficult. Period. No one will argue with that. However, learning a language that is not a very common or a well-known language, is arguably more difficult. Lots of popular and well known languages, such as English, Spanish, Mandarin, etc. have a plethora of options available to learn them; books, audio …
- My Commitment and Early LearningThe decision to commit to learning Afrikaans was easy. The execution of it is the hard part. Anyone can say they want to learn something. Anyone can talk about something passionately and with good intentions, but actually doing it, requires an entirely different level of commitment. I actually had a dream a couple weeks after …
- Introduction to AfrikaansYou never really know when something will change your life. Things enter and leave our lives every day, and the ones that strike us the hardest, the ones that invoke emotions, and the ones that cause us to cry out for more are the things that shape us into the people we are. This is …
An American's journey learning Afrikaans
Quest For Afrikaans 