Teach Yourself Afrikaans Book and 2 Audio CDs
Brand New Book and 2CDs
*learn how to speak, understand and write afrikaans
*progress quickly beyond the basics
*explore the language in depth
Teach Yourself Afrikaans is a complete course in reading and writing, speaking and understanding Afrikaans. It will be perfect for you if you are a complete beginner or if you have some knowledge of the language which you need to brush up. The book is very communication-centered and the emphasis throughout is on speaking and being understood in everyday situations.
The course has 15 units, all based on the kind of language you will need on a visit to South Africa. New language and grammar is presented through dialogues and there is plenty of opportunity for you to practise and check your understanding as you go along. The culture notes will ensure that you get the most out of any business trip or holiday and the English-Afrikaans and Afrikaans-English vocabularies will be invaluable, both as you work through the course and on any trip you take.
There is an accompanying double CD
About the Author
Professor Lydia McDermott, the author, is Director of the Multilingual Studies Programme at the University of Natal, Durban, South Africa.
About the Afrikaans Language
Afrikaans is an Indo-European language, derived from Dutch and classified as Low Franconian Germanic, mainly spoken in South Africa and Namibia, with smaller numbers of speakers in Botswana, Angola, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, and Zambia. Due to emigration and migrant labour, there are possibly over 100,000 Afrikaans speakers in the United Kingdom, with other substantial communities found in Brussels, Amsterdam, Perth (Australia), Mount Isa, Toronto and Auckland. It is the primary language used by two related ethnic groups in South Africa: the Afrikaners and the Coloureds or kleurlinge or bruinmense (including Basters, Cape Malays and Griqua).
Geographically, the Afrikaans language is the majority language of the western one-third of South Africa (Northern and Western Cape, spoken at home by 69% and 58%, respectively). It is also the largest first language in the adjacent southern third of Namibia (Hardap and Karas, where it is the first language of 44% and 40%, respectively).
Afrikaans originated from the 17th Century Dutch language. The dialect became known as "Cape Dutch". Later, Afrikaans was sometimes also referred to as "African Dutch" or "Kitchen Dutch", although these terms were mainly pejorative. Afrikaans was considered a Dutch dialect until the late 19th century, when it began to be recognised as a distinct language, and it gained equal status with Dutch and English as an official language in South Africa in 1925. Dutch remained an official language until the new 1961 constitution finally stipulated the two official languages in South Africa to be Afrikaans and English (although the 1961 constitution still had a sub-clause stipulating that the word "Afrikaans" was also meant to be referring to the Dutch language). It is the only Indo-European language of significance that underwent distinct development on the African continent.
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