# Can Afrikaans speakers understand English?



## polyglotguy

I am marketing director for a company seeking to sell goods in South Africa in the Afrikaans language.

However, unfortunately the merchant account shopping cart provider that we use only accepts English. 

Will this be an issue with Afrikaans speakers? They would see the product pages in Afrikaans, and then when they added the item to their shopping cart, the actual checkout process would be in English.

Would this be okay? Thanks very much in advance.


----------



## Brioche

As a rough rule of thumb, the higher the educational attainment, and the higher the socio-economic status of Afrikaans speakers, the higher their understanding of English.

Many speakers of Afrikaans do not speak, read or write English.


----------



## elirlandes

Brioche said:


> As a rough rule of thumb, the higher the educational attainment, and the higher the socio-economic status of Afrikaans speakers, the higher their understanding of English.
> 
> Many speakers of Afrikaans do not speak, read or write English.



Although perhaps the socio-economic profile of someone who has access to the internet, and would consider buying something on line is high enough that they also have studied enough English to get by.

Perhaps a local may spot the thread and answer...

[Afterthought... can your provider do Dutch? Afrikaans and Dutch are fairly similar.]


----------



## Outsider

English is widely used in South Africa, alongside Afrikaans and many other languages. So, if an Afrikaans speaker understands English, that may be because of similarities between the two languages, but it just as likely to be because that person has had some prior direct contact with English.


----------



## SmithyRed

Brioche said:


> As a rough rule of thumb, the higher the educational attainment, and the higher the socio-economic status of Afrikaans speakers, the higher their understanding of English.
> 
> Many speakers of Afrikaans do not speak, read or write English.


 
Most advertisements in South Africa are in English, as are the movies and TV shows (with a handful of exceptions), and the language is also taught as a second language at school to all pupils from grade 3 until graduation.
So if you're selling and promoting a new product in South Africa, English will suffice, since the commercials you put out will most likely be in English. I can't remember the last time I saw a commercial in Afrikaans. 

 Most Afrikaners can read, write and understand English. I'm a writer but I use the English language instead of my native language. There are a minority who choose not to speak it unless forced to because they aren't that good at pronouncing the words, but we're all pretty clued up on the language.


----------

