First, the love part:

I love how expressive it can be. There are certain words and phrases that just can’t be translated. Words like padkos, dagga, soutie, even borewors. But my all time favorite word is; kak.
I love it. Short, sweet and expressively to the point. It’s kak! Fuck, it’s great I’m smiling to myself as I write it. KAK. LOL.

Unfortunately the love part of my relationship with Afrikaans is pretty short compared to the hate part.

I dunno when I first started to hate it, sometime in my early youth I presume. I don’t remember disliking it with such vehemence during primary school, this sour relationship really only blossomed in high school. I suppose one reason is that I associated Afrikaans with the government. The fact that I seemed to fail it every single term didn’t help either.

In fact, my Afrikaans was so bad that my evil stepfather decided to do something rather drastic. The bastard put an advert in the Farmers Weekly, asking if any family would look after two city boys for a week. In return, their children could come spend a week with us in the big bad city afterwards.

I was horrified that he could do such a thing, not that I expected anything less from him.
And so it was my step boet and I were shipped to a farm somewhere in the Free State. Apart from the resentment and the obvious learning I was supposed to be under going, a week’s holiday on a farm ain’t all bad. I got to see how milk was made, saw a sheep getting skinned, went hunting and did all kinds of farm-type stuff. I must add that I was a better shot with every caliber rifle than the entire family. This skill earned me a small token of respect from the boers. I would have been touched, but I was too busy listening to Duran Duran on my ever-so-cool city-boy-only Walkman.

Anyway, one night while sitting on the floor in front of the TV watching the news I completely forgot where I was and who I was with. A piece came on about Eugene Terblanche and the AWB, and without thinking I blurted out, “My God, these people are a bunch of idiots.” Instantly I could feel ice-hot rays of death boring into my back. I turned around to see the farmer and his kids glaring evilly down at me from the couch.
I honestly thought I was going to die that night. Seriously. I fucking kakked (shat) myself. So much so that I locked our bedroom door that night, and put a chair under the door handle like you see in the movies.
I don’t remember learning much Afrikaans that week, cause by the end of it the family were speaking to us in English. I guess we were mangling their language so badly they couldn’t bear it.

My second great opportunity to get to grips with Afrikaans happened when I went into the army. This is a time when most English speaking boys learn to praat die taal. However, because of a simple little lie (one I’ve been telling ever since) I never got the opportunity.
You see, one day shortly after basic training when I’d been transferred to a camp just outside of Soweto, one of the Sergeant Majors was barking orders to me.
It was a scene straight out of a movie. Red faced. Spittle flying everywhere. “Ek moet doen dis, en gaan hier, maar doen dat….”
On and on he went, shouting at me. I just stood there stiffly at attention nodding slightly every so often, waiting for him to finish.
Finally he did, with a questioning look on his face.
“Pardon?” I said meekly.

My God, I thought he was gonna pop a fuse. The lie came quickly and easily. I told him I’d been schooled in the UK, and had only just returned to South Africa to do my national service. The poor dude was stuck between been horrified that I couldn’t speak Afrikaans and totally impressed that this soutie would come back to do his national service.

I have no proof that he went to the officer’s mess and told them, but it seems likely, because after that day none of the officers spoke to me in Afrikaans again. It was all English baby!
I still tell that story about getting schooled in England to explain my pathetic grasp of the language. I’ve told it so many times, it’s almost become the truth.

Another truth is this: I no longer have an issue with Afrikaans, and sometimes wish I could speak it better, but truth be told there are far more useful languages for me to learn in SA. And I haven’t really bothered with those either.