Here is nearly all of Afrikaans verb conjugation in one line: ek is, jy is, hy is, ons is, julle is, hulle is. I am, you are, he is, we are, you (plural) are, they are. One form for everybody. If you want to learn Afrikaans as an English speaker, that line tells you what you're dealing with: a Germanic language like English, descended from Dutch, that shed most of the grammar that makes Dutch and German slow going.
It's one of the most approachable languages an English speaker can pick. The US Foreign Service Institute, which rates languages by how long its English-speaking diplomats take to reach professional proficiency, has grouped Afrikaans with Dutch, Spanish and Swedish among the fastest languages for English speakers, at roughly 24 weeks of full-time study. You'll need much less than that to chat with your partner's family at a braai. What takes effort is the sound of it, a couple of word-order habits, and finding material made for adults rather than schoolchildren.
Where Afrikaans is spoken, and by whom
Afrikaans is one of South Africa's official languages and the home language of roughly six to seven million South Africans, third after Zulu and Xhosa. It's the most common home language in the Western Cape and the Northern Cape, and millions of people elsewhere use it as a second or third language. In Namibia it serves as a common language between communities, and there are Afrikaans speakers in the diaspora from London to Perth.
Visitors often get one thing wrong about who speaks it. Afrikaans is the language of Afrikaners, and just as much of many coloured South Africans, especially in the Cape, where the local variety, Kaaps, is as much a part of the language as anything in a textbook.
The language grew out of the Dutch brought to the Cape from 1652, reshaped over two centuries by people who spoke Malay, Portuguese creole, Khoekhoe and Bantu languages, and it was standardised as a language in its own right in the early 20th century. That history is why it sounds Dutch but behaves differently.
Why it's easy to learn Afrikaans from English
- One word for "the". Die man, die vrou, die huis: the man, the woman, the house. There's no grammatical gender to memorise, and "a" is simply 'n.
- Verbs that don't change. Ek werk, sy werk, hulle werk: I work, she works, they work.
- One past tense. Put het in the sentence and ge- on the verb: ek het gewerk, I worked or I have worked. Only a handful of verbs keep a simple past form, such as was, "was".
- Familiar words. Hand, water, boek (book), huis (house), kat (cat), warm, koud (cold). They sound different, but you'll recognise them on the page.
Our guide to the easiest languages to learn covers Dutch, the closest relative of Afrikaans, and why Germanic languages give English speakers such a head start.
What will catch you out
The double negative
Afrikaans negates with nie, and usually it needs two of them: Ek praat nie Afrikaans nie, "I don't speak Afrikaans". The second nie closes the sentence like a bracket. When the two would sit side by side, one drops out: Ek verstaan nie, "I don't understand". Learners forget the closing nie for weeks, and Afrikaans speakers understand them anyway.
Word order
The verb comes second in a main clause, so when a sentence starts with a time word, the subject moves behind the verb: Môre werk ek, "Tomorrow I'm working". In a clause starting with dat ("that"), the verb goes to the end: Ek weet dat hy Afrikaans praat, "I know that he speaks Afrikaans". And in the past tense, the ge- form waits at the end: Ek het gister gewerk, "I worked yesterday".
The sounds
The g is a rough sound from the back of the throat, like the ch in Scottish "loch", and it's everywhere, starting with goeie môre. The r is rolled or tapped. The ui in huis and uit has no English equivalent, and the y in jy and my sounds close to the "ay" in "say".
Dutch isn't a shortcut
Dutch speakers can usually read Afrikaans without much trouble, but the two languages part ways constantly: Dutch "hoe gaat het" is Afrikaans hoe gaan dit, and "ik heb gewerkt" becomes ek het gewerk. If you already know Dutch, you'll have a head start. Just don't try to learn Afrikaans from Dutch material.
First words
- Hallo: hello. Goeie môre: good morning.
- Hoe gaan dit?: how are you? Goed, dankie, en met jou?: fine, thanks, and you?
- Dankie, baie dankie: thanks, thanks a lot.
- Asseblief: please.
- Ja, nee: yes, no.
- Jammer: sorry.
- Praat jy Engels?: do you speak English?
- Totsiens: goodbye.
- Lekker: nice, great, tasty, fun. Possibly the hardest-working word in the language.
- Braai: a barbecue, and a social institution.
Written for schoolchildren, spoken by bilinguals
Most adults who learn Afrikaans already live in South Africa or have married into it, which is a small market by publishing standards. Most Afrikaans material is written for South African schoolchildren, who take it as a school subject and hear it around them every day. And nearly every Afrikaans speaker also speaks excellent English and will switch the moment you hesitate, which is kind and does nothing for your Afrikaans. An adult beginner tends to find material that is either too young, a school reader with a cartoon on the cover, or too thin, a page of phrases for tourists. Something that starts a grown-up from zero and keeps going is much rarer.
A first month, week by week
In week one, learn the greetings above, the sounds (especially g and ui), the numbers to twenty, and sentences with is: Ek is moeg, "I'm tired"; Dit is lekker, "It's nice".
In week two, add fifty everyday verbs and nouns, plus the past tense with het and ge-. Describe yesterday, one short sentence at a time.
Week three is for nie and word order. Write five sentences a day that start with a time word (vandag, today; môre, tomorrow; gister, yesterday) and five that use dat. Make half of them negative.
In week four, start using it with people. Ask the Afrikaans speakers around you to stay in Afrikaans for five minutes, even when it's slow, and send short messages if speaking feels like too much.
How Qlango helps you learn Afrikaans
Qlango teaches Afrikaans at A1 and A2, the stage at which you can introduce yourself, handle everyday exchanges and talk about your family, work and plans in simple sentences. It gives you the patient practice that English-fluent South Africans, kindly, rarely will. Sentence-building exercises make you place both nie words yourself and push the verb to the end of a dat clause until it feels natural. Spaced repetition returns each word at the moment it's about to slip, and with Premium an AI teacher explains things like where the second nie went, as often as you ask. You can also chat with other learners, with message translation and AI help to write a reply, which is good rehearsal for those first messages to Afrikaans speakers.
When you add the course, you choose the language you learn through, so it can be English or your native language. See all languages and levels, and the Premium plans for everything else, offline learning included. If South Africa is home for the long term, our guide to Zulu covers the country's most widely spoken home language.
Tonight, do the first A1 Afrikaans lesson. Tomorrow, say baie dankie to someone who isn't expecting it.
