[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by Alphapheemail

The best way to learn a launguage is to be fully immersed in the country of origin. The only way to fully get a grasp of all the idioms. Other wise one can only know how to use the "basics" (which is good too).

That's why my English is a bit better than passable. Though my spelling is still horrible (in any language, especially in Dutch), my understanding of the language is fair. I even dreamt in English when I stayed in the US and couldn't remember half of the Dutch words when I talked to my mother on the phone.

Originally Posted by HappyMartin

I speak English and Afrikaans though my Afrikaans is not as fluent as it once was.

Ek praat Engels en Afkikaans maar my Afrikaans is nie meer so vlot nie.

And in Dutch:

Ik spreek Engels en Afrikaans, maar mijn Afrikaans is niet meer so vloeiend als dat hij was.


The "nie so vlot nie" is something what was often used in Middle Dutch (double negative), but is now no longer used in the Dutch language, but apparently still in Afrikaans

Originally Posted by AlfonsVH

I live in Belgium; my mother tongue is Dutch (with a 'Flemish' accent - if that even exists).

I love that accent! I used to live near the Belgian border and we heard a lot of it. I think it makes the language very friendly (as compared to the accent that is spoken in the northern part of the Netherlands)

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

I have lived in a near-border area for most of my life. Don't forget that language is also used as a weapon, and not just by the more powerful language group. For example, Spanish, (and it's border corruption Tex-Mex), as used as a shield for privacy among (apparent) non-Spanish speakers. As a late teenage, I and a friend used to have grand times when we were in public places, listening to people talking Spanish behind us in lines, and then speaking back and for between us in broken German, which the Spanish speakers didn't know. The sudden silence and nasty looks were priceless. How dare we talk in a language they didn't understand. (Which was what they were doing....)

They'll probably have looked even nastier if you dared to speak their language