I live in Hong Kong now and I work in a company that's absolutely FULL of Saffers. Slowly but surely, Afrikaans slang has started to enter into my everyday vocabulary. Nothing that I can really post here without getting into trouble, though! Haha

Pieter, I have no questions... and if i had them, they wouldn't be 'frquently asked:)
I learned Afrikaans several years ago and much enjoyed... or rather the opposite: I enjoyed and then tryed to learn.
I really love the language, but as years passed I forget everything:-/

Afrikaans is <em>easy to learn</em>. People are often proud with 'how hard their languages are for foreigners':) I don't know if feel like that, but I loved the simplicity.

Alas, there are f****l... I mean, not-quite-many of Afrikaners in Russia:/ I plan to renew my efforts, but not now as I have enough problems with Arabic. Though, if any funny learning activity will take place on the site...

I have downloaded several apps to learn Afrikaans. I love have it feels like a combination of English and Dutch. I was curious if anyone knew of any other good websites or learning material for Afrikaans?

CONTRACTION NOTES:

1.)The part after ->/= is the pronunciation and should never the spelled that way. Only the left side is correct when writing (People tend to use the contractions on social media such as Facebook, Whatsapp, Mxit, SMSes etc.)

2.)This is not a complete list, and only represents a view significant contractions eg. a.) words before the double negative nie, b.) modal verbs with the first/double negative nie, c.) "is dit" phrases contract to "isit" and with the previous word eg. "Hoesit?"

So, here's a hint on the colloquial pronunciation of Afrikaans:

We love our contractions. In fact, we prefer to use it wherever we can. However, in writing we do no contract as the spelling changes drastically. An example is below:

Is dit nie 'n man nie? (Is that not a man?)

Isit nee mannie? (Isn't that a man?)

Is dit = Isit, with the s pronounced as a z.

nie 'n = nee, does not mean "nee", but it sounds that way due to the diphthong of the sounds "ie" & "i", resulting in an "ee" sound.

man nie = mannie, this sounds like "money". Proper pronunciation would have us differentiate the words, but we tend contract them to save time and energy speaking.

Other examples of contracting the last verb/noun with the double negative:

Hond nie = hontie (hauntea) eg. Dit is nie my hond nie/hontie.

doen nie = doenie (do-knee) eg. Ek wil dit nie doen nie/doenie.

wil nie = willie (villy) eg. Ek wil dit nie doen nie/Ek willie dit doenie.

sal nie = sallie (sully) eg. Ek sal dit nie doen nie/Ek sallie dit doenie.

gaan nie = gannie (chunny) eg. Ek gaan dit nie doen nie/Ek gannie dit doenie.

More contraction examples:

Hoe gaan dit? -> colloquially -> Hoe is dit? = Hoesit? (s pronounced as z)

Wat is dit? -> Watsit? (s pronounced as z... hopefully you're recognising the z pronunciation pattern)

Wie is dit? -> Wiesit? (s as z)

Waar is dit? -> Waarsit? (s as z)