Question #1

My Uncle Nathan asked some questions about South Africa that I thought everyone would be interested in so I wanted to post the answers here on the blog. I’ll post different questions as I have time to answer them.

What is the language like? I don't mean some other language than English, I mean words or phrases or slang that you don't understand.

There are two major languages spoken here other than English. The white Afrikaans people speak Afrikaans. Most of the blacks speak Tswana. I am making a pretty feeble attempt at learning Tswana. I can say a few phrases. Most everyone speaks English here, but there have been several times where people were talking English to me and I didn’t even realize it because of their accent. (Or actually their lack of an American accent makes it hard for them to understand.) In stores, people automatically assume that because we are white that we speak Afrikaans and will usually speak Afrikaans to us. Most of the black people also speak Afrikaans so they will speak to us in Afrikaans until we tell them that we only speak English. The other day I was in the hardware store and this elderly Afrikaans gentleman thought that I worked there because I had a notebook. He started asking me a question and I couldn’t understand what he was saying. I said to him, “I only speak English,” and he responded very annoyed “I am speaking English.” So then I told him that I don’t work there and he quickly moved on. There are quite a few English words or phrases that they use that we have had to get used to. Tennis shoes are “Takkies.” If you are going to doing something in a little while you say, “I’ll do that just now.” If you are going to doing it pretty soon, say “I’ll do it now, now.” If someone wants to know how you are doing, they’ll say “how’s it?” and you would respond “sharp” if you are good; “sharp sharp” if you are really good. One word that I have a hard time remembering to use is the word “serviette” for an American napkin. In S.A. a napkin is a feminine product. That makes for an embarrassing blunder in restaurants. French fries are chips. Chips are crisps. Ketchup is tomato sauce. Water is not pronounced like in the states, it is pronounce Wo-tah. And even though they can understand almost everything said in our American accent, they cannot figure out what we want if we ask for water in an American accent. The other day at KFC jenny gave her order and everything was fine until she asked for water in her American accent. The lady went to the refrigerated case and kept picking up everything but water. She could not figure out what we wanted. There are many other different words than I can’t take time to write here, but for the most part we communicate fine. I still have a very hard time understanding people on the phone. In person I can watch their lips and body language to understand what they are saying. Depending on a persons accent, most of the time I cannot understand them on the phone. I usually get the basic idea of what they are saying, but not the details. Like when the lawnmower repair shop called to give me an update on the mower being fixed. Out of a 3 minute conversation all I understood was that it was done and I could pick it up. Everything else was gibberish to me. That makes it very hard to do any substantial business on the phone.