| Hi, guys! It’s me, Christine. Welcome to AfrikaansPod101.com. And today’s lesson is… 10 phrases to amaze native speakers. So these are the ones that, you know, like, obviously you’ve been practicing your Afrikaans with the natives and they’re like, “Wow, you’re actually really good at Afrikaans.” And then you pull these guys out the bag and they’re like, “Whoa! Where did they learn Afrikaans?” And then you have to tell them, AfrikaansPod101.com, but yeah, so let’s get started! |
| 1. Dankie, maar ek is eintlik nie 'n moedertaal spreker nie. |
| “Thank you but I'm not a native speaker actually.” |
| Dankie, maar ek is eintlik nie 'n moedertaal spreker nie. |
| Dankie,...maar ek...is eintlik...nie 'n...moedertaal...spreker nie. |
| “Thank you but I'm not a native speaker actually.” |
| So that’s the perfect one because it’s a little bit of a contradiction, you going like, “I’m not a mother language person,” but you’re saying it in such good Afrikaans that they’re like, “But is she? Is she not? Is he? Is he not? What?” So it’s always a good one to remember, especially if you wanna just like backchat a compliment because we’re all a little bit awkward when people give us compliments, so it’s a great one to learn. |
| 2. Dit het my net een jaar gevat om vlot te praat. |
| “It took me only one year to become fluent.” |
| Dit het my net een jaar gevat om vlot te praat. |
| Dit...het...my...net...een...jaar...gevat...om...vlot...te...praat. |
| “It took me only one year to become fluent.” |
| Well, if that’s the case, then congratulations! Because it’s actually really hard to become fluent in a language, especially if we haven’t been learning since we were very little, and people always say, it takes much longer to learn a language when you’re a bit older, but, I guess, if you immerse yourself in the country, in their language, and you go stay there and only speak there to the locals and see how they react to you, it could only take a year and if that’s you, congratulations! It’s really well done. |
| 3. Ek sal Afrikaans soos mense wat Afrikaans as moedertaal praat in drie jaar kan praat. |
| “I’ll speak Afrikaans like a native speaker in 3 years.” |
| Ek sal Afrikaans soos mense wat Afrikaans as moedertaal praat in drie jaar kan praat. |
| Ek...sal...Afrikaans...soos...mense wat...Afrikaans as...moedertaal praat...in drie jaar...kan praat. |
| “I’ll speak Afrikaans like a native in 3 years.” |
| So, like I just said, if it didn’t take you a year, don’t worry, you’re quite normal. If it takes you 3 years even, that’s quite great to sound like a native speaker. But the point is that there’s no timeline for learning a language because I believe that you’ll always continue learning. Even, I’m fluent in Afrikaans, but that doesn’t mean I’m still learning every day. There’s always words and think about your own language, your mother tongue and think about the last time you learned a new word and then if you can’t remember, why don’t just go into a dictionary and just open a page randomly and find a word and I bet you, you’ll find at least one word that you haven’t learned before. So, even if you can speak like a native in 3 years or be fluent in 1 year, don’t stop, just keep learning because we can always just keep growing up. |
| 4. Ek leer al Afrikaans vir 10 jaar. |
| “I've been learning Afrikaans for 10 years.” |
| Ek leer al Afrikaans vir 10 jaar. |
| Ek...leer...al...Afrikaans...vir...10 jaar. |
| “I've been learning Afrikaans for 10 years.” |
| Well, there we go, even longer. I mean, like I just said, it takes a lifetime to really fully understand a language, usually, and I don’t actually believe anyone really does. So, if you just keep going, persevering and keep improving every day, just learn new vocabulary, watch a movie in the language, and try to pick up on different sayings or little colloquialisms, if it takes you 1 year, 3 years, or if you’ve been learning for 10 jaar, great! Keep going! I’m loving the perseverance. |
| 5. Ek kan Afrikaans flieks kyk sonder onderskrifte. |
| “I can watch Afrikaans movies without subtitles.” |
| Ek kan Afrikaans flieks kyk sonder onderskrifte. |
| Ek...kan...Afrikaans...flieks...kyk...sonder...onderskrifte. |
| “I can watch Afrikaans movies without subtitles.” |
| Well, that’s really, really impressive. I remember the first time I learned a foreign language and I watched the movie in the language and I always had to read the subtitles to really understand what was going on, and then this one time, there was no subtitles, but I really wanted to watch the movie, so I was like, “Ah, okay Christine, just do it, just watch it.” And I could kind of follow it and I could catch the gist of the scenes and I was like, “Wow! I’ve made it.” So, if you can watch an Afrikaans movie without onderskrifte, congratulations! Let us know in the comments so we can all congratulate you. Well done! |
| 6. Ek kan omtrent 50 woorde in Afrikaans 'n dag memoriseer. |
| “I can memorize around 50 new Afrikaans words a day.” |
| Ek kan omtrent 50 woorde in Afrikaans 'n dag memoriseer. |
| Ek...kan...omtrent...50...woorde...in Afrikaans...'n dag...memoriseer. |
| “I can memorize around 50 new Afrikaans words a day.” |
| Well then, you’re a genius, like that’s a lot of words. If you can do that, maybe, change the number if you wanna remember the sentence for a friend or if you’re hanging out with some local Afrikaans-speaking people and you wanna just impress them a little bit like go for it. But 50 is quite a lot and it probably takes a lot of practicing, but if you can do that, that’s awesome like I said before. It’s really great if you can learn new vocabulary every day and then also, try to use them in the next day’s speech like memoriseer. It’s a nice word to say, I like it a lot, so I’m gonna try to say it a lot today and probably annoy the people around me. But like doing that is quite fun because then, the people around you also start remembering that word and they can help you learn even faster. |
| 7. Ek leer Afrikaans op my eie. |
| “I'm learning Afrikaans all by myself.” |
| Ek leer Afrikaans op my eie. |
| Ek...leer...Afrikaans...op my...eie. |
| “I'm learning Afrikaans all by myself.” |
| Oh well, congratulations! It’s really good. I mean, if you’re learning Afrikaans all by yourself, it means you’re really, really motivated which is, obviously, you’re awesome and you can’t really say that because you’re learning it with us, AfrikaansPod101.com. So, even if you’re learning it op jou eie, it’s… it’s really great, but try to find a little community where, you know, other people who are doing it as well because that way, you can practice with them, share your story, share experiences. I mean it’s always really nice when you’re really struggling to pronounce a word or something and then someone else comes and they’re like, “Oh, I could never pronounce this word,” but then I found out that if you could just do this la, la, la, whatever with your mouth and voila, now they can say it. So, it’s always nice to learn little tips from other people. But if you are learning op jou eie “on your own,” it’s okay, like it’s really great just learning in the first place, so enjoy. |
| 8. Ek verstaan alles wat jy gesê het. |
| “I completely understood everything you said.” |
| Ek verstaan alles wat jy gesê het. |
| Ek...verstaan...alles...wat jy...gesê het. |
| “I completely understood everything you said.” |
| This is the best one to learn out of all of these. If you pinpoint this one and remember it, it’s such a great one. It makes you have such little internal giggle sometimes. It’s such a nice thing when you know a language that the people around you don’t know, but your friends with you do know and you can like gossip a little bit or you can be like, oh, let’s do this tonight or whatever and everyone around you don’t... doesn’t know what you’re saying. But the funniest thing is when someone else is doing that about you, but you can understand their language and then you just look at them and you go, ek verstaan alles wat jy gesê het and then they’ll be like, huh, sorry like we didn’t mean to gossip. We didn’t mean to say that you or she isn’t that great or that your hair is looking a bit funny or whatever, I don’t know, whatever they were saying. Saying that, backchatting that way in their own language will give them a little bit of a shock and hopefully, not make them say bad things about other people which is not what I meant when I said it’s good to know the language that other people don’t know. I just meant like it’s fun to play tricks on your friends and stuff, but it’s not nice to say bad things, so don’t do that, but come back with that, if people do do that. |
| 9. Ek kan dit in Afrikaans vertaal. |
| “I can translate that in Afrikaans.” |
| Ek kan dit in Afrikaans vertaal. |
| Ek… kan… dit… in… Afrikaans… vertaal. |
| “I can translate that in Afrikaans.” |
| This one is also super useful. I mean if you’re in South Africa or any other language where they… any other country where they speak Afrikaans, it’s such a nice thing. Say now, you’re in an airport and there’s someone that really doesn’t understand English or another language that you possibly do understand, you can just, you know, step in, give a little helping hand even to a stranger and just be like, ek kan dit in Afrikaans vertaal and translate it to them in Afrikaans, so that they can make their day a bit nicer, their journey a bit easier and you just feel great because you’ve done something, you’ve used your Afrikaans in a positive way and you’ve practiced a little bit with a local and helped them, so yeah. |
| 10. Ek is mal oor Afrikaans. |
| “I am crazy about Afrikaans.” |
| Ek is mal oor Afrikaans. |
| Ek...is...mal...oor...Afrikaans. |
| “I’m crazy about Afrikaans.” |
| This is such a fun one because when you are practicing and you say to your Afrikaans friends like, you know, I have been learning a little bit of Afrikaans. This is what I can say so far blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.They’re like, “Oh, but that’s really weird. Why did you decide to do Afrikaans?” And you can be like, “Because ek is mal oor Afrikaans,” and they’ll be like, “Oh, hahaha. That’s very funny that you can answer back in Afrikaans.” And they’ll be very impressed with you, not just because you can answer them back in Afrikaans, but also, because you are crazy about their language. Who doesn’t love to hear that? |
| So, we reached the end of today’s lesson, 10 ways to impress native speakers. And, I hope you guys have enjoyed it. I’m Christine with AfrikaansPod101.com. Let us know in the comments below how you felt or any experiences that you’ve had. Keep learning Afrikaans! |
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