Learning Vocabulary

Foreign language vocabulary building can be one of the more time consuming aspects of learning a language, and one that can not be ignored. Fortunately, there are various methods you can use to speed the process up, or at least to add a little spice.

Before beginning to learn foreign words, there is one point that is often overlooked and this is that words should be divided into two categories. Words that you want to be able to use and words that you just want to recognize.

Make a Vocabulary List

The most obvious way of learning Afrikaans vocabulary is by making a vocabulary list and learning it.

One thing to remember about learning and memory is that it is easier to retain language when active learning is involved. Organize your vocabulary list. Don’t just write it. Put the words into an order that makes sense to you. (Active learning). It is also easier to learn words by category, so group words by category e.g. animals, fruit etc.

It is easier and more efficient to learn words as part if a sentence. So instead of learning hoed 'hat' make a sentence and learn Jy het 'n 'hoed 'you have a hat'.

Learn the basic vocabulary on this site

Learn the Afrikaans vocabulary on Easy Afrikaans and check you know it using the Crosswords generated using the same vocabulary lists.

Word association

Associate an English word with the Afrikaans word you need to learn.

There are many words which are related between Afrikaans and English, either through a shared root or a loan word from one language to another. These are easy and fast to learn, and give you a large source of initial Afrikaans vocabulary.

The difficulty with using word association and lists as vocabulary learning tools is that they do not help you use the word. This is because they don’t give you any idea as to the context in which it should be used.

Name items in Afrikaans

Learn Afrikaans words by writing words you are trying to learn on everyday items.

This is an easy way to expand your vocabulary. All you need to do is glance at the writing every time you use the item. So not only have you associated the word with the object, something that a straight vocabulary list does not do, but you are more likely to remember it when you need it.