Learn Afrikaans vocabulary

Learning Afrikaans 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.

Word association

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

Similarities with

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