Target snapped

You know, I’m learning to speak Afrikaans, and that right there is the exact reason why, it just sounds like a funny dialect of Dutch and I love it

It’s made up of mostly Dutch words. Some Dutch people even call it old Dutch

Yeah it is based on a certain dialect which hasn’t really changed since then, but the grammar is quite different. This means Dutch people can understand Afrikaans without trouble, but speaking it is more difficult

Dit is relatief maklik om te lees ook, maar Nederlands is weer moeilik om uit te spreek as jy gewoond is aan die Afrikaanse uitspraak van woorde.

I love this. Yimmye are you learning it in a course or just on your own?

I haven’t really looked for courses yet, I just read a lot of Afrikaans and listen to Afrikaanse music, which isn’t really proper learning, but it’s a start

Basically the same way I learned German then. I've also had german spoken movies with subtitles to help me learn

Problem is, Afrikaans is a bit too niche to have dubbed movies, especially because it’s not the only national language there

Yup. Not to forget the foreign languages.

We have 11 official languages, but only two that are used for business etc.

Which country are you from?

South Africa right? Which two are used for business? English and ... Zulu? Xhosa? Afrikaans?

having an official language doesn't mean you're not allowed to speak something else it just means places are not legally obligated to print things in every language. we could be like Canada have English and French. or maybe English and Spanish. or maybe just English like Britain. almost every country in Europe has an official language why not the US?

it would also mean that in order to gain citizenship someone would need to show proficiency in that language, eliminating the language barriers. it would also limit language barriers that kids have in schools since schools wouldn't need to try and teach kids who don't speak the same as the teacher it's not fair to them. and then they isolate themselves from the other kids that's not fair either

Having no official language means you aren’t legally obligated to print in any language, I don’t see how making some languages official would save money. English and Spanish are the de facto official languages of the United States, and public schools are almost exclusively in English.

I did a paper in college on it. With no official language, for liability purposes signs need to be printed in multiple languages. I've seen literally ten different languages on some signs. More ink, bigger signs, more money, etc. And citizenship tests need to be offered in any language asked for, which creates similar problems. Then the children of those people grow up isolated from their classmates. And not every school is able to offer multilingual teachers. We are strapped for teachers as it is. I was a middle school teacher I speak French but I had no clue how to help the students who spoke Spanish and I had a few who spoke Hindi and one who spoke Korean. The school said I just had to do my best. They couldn't learn and I didnt know how to help them. No one wins. Again the question I ask is almost every other country does it why not us?