No Afrikaans on Duolingo: Here Are 5 Great Alternatives

Afrikaans, commonly called Cape Dutch, is a fascinating language with a long and rich history. Afrikaans is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European family of languages. In South Africa, 10.3 million people speak Afrikaans it as a second language while about  6.9 million people speak it as their mother tongue. 

Apart from South Africa, many people in several countries speak Afrikaans. These countries include Zambia, Malawi, Namibia, Swaziland, Lesotho, and Botswana. It originated from the Dutch dialect of Holland used by European colonizers (Dutch, French, and German) and their slaves in South Africa. 

Afrikaans is a great language to learn. There are many language-learning apps that make learning new languages fun and at your pace. Duolingo is a great language-learning app.

The popular language learning platform Duolingo, which offers brief courses in various languages, is used by many individuals who want to learn a new language. Learning a new language with Duolingo is cost-free, and simple. But can you learn Afrikaans on Duolingo? We will look at whether this is possible or not.

Is Afrikaans Course on Duolingo?

Duolingo is the most widely used language-learning platform. Duolingo has more than 500 million users. Since its inception eleven years ago, it has expanded tremendously.

Its creators set out to make learning a new language easy and enjoyable by incorporating elements of popular video games. Duolingo uses a tree-based learning structure. Users learn new words, phrases, and simple sentences with flashcards, pictures, listening, and writing exercises. 

Duolingo puts the world’s languages at your fingertips, from widely spoken ones like English and Spanish to rare ones like Hawaiian, Yiddish, and Navajo. It also offers languages such as French, Hindi, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, etc.

Sadly, Duolingo does not currently have any Afrikaans courses. Fortunately, there are many alternatives that you can use to learn Afrikaans fluently and fast.

The Best Duolingo Alternatives to Learn Afrikaans

Duolingo does not offer Afrikaans, but that shouldn’t stop you from learning the language. There are several other platforms for honing your Afrikaans speaking abilities without leaving the comfort of your own home. Since we are unsure of its availability or release date, the following are other applications that provide excellent and interesting Afrikaans lessons:

Mondly

Mondly is an excellent tool that makes language learning fun, easy, and effective. It is the perfect classroom for beginners, moderate learners, and advanced students. The best feature of Mondly is that you may start learning for scratch and can use the app on any device and from any place. 

Mondly uses a scoreboard for competition in its courses, like Duolingo, and covers various topics, such as vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. Moreover, this platform stands out for its hands-free integration, which allows you to have chats and practice speaking wherever you choose.

Memrise

Memrise is a great app for learning Afrikaans. It is a free online platform with a wealth of introductory courses, including anything from basic academics to games and media. This platform offers you enough content to practice reading, writing, and speaking Afrikaans, even though it is mostly community-based. You can learn the Afrikaans alphabet, vocabulary, and phrases for free by taking one of the many accessible online courses. It keeps you interested and introduces new phrases gradually, giving you time to learn them all by heart.

Clozemaster

You can increase your vocabulary and attain fluency in the most entertaining manner possible with Clozemaster. This app uses a cloze system for exercises. You will have to complete a task where you have to fill in the blanks with the appropriate word considering the context. By doing this, learning new words and even sentences becomes enjoyable and easy to remember. 

Thanks to this technique, you may quickly and competitively acquire Afrikaans vocabulary and grammar. With its entertaining games and media, this Afrikaans language learning software instructs you to read, write, and speak confidently.

Ling

You have plenty of opportunities to increase your learning with this app full of minigames. Ling employs recordings of genuine native speakers to assist you in developing your oral comprehension of the language, which is one of its key benefits. As a result, you will acquire all the terminology and slang that people use while speaking Afrikaans, as opposed to using some outdated, formal stuff that you are unlikely to need in real life. The chatbot, which allows users to practice vocabulary and common phrases, is an incredible tool for introverts who need more confidence to start a conversation in Afrikaans.

AfrikaansPod101

AfrikaansPod101 is a great app for learning Afrikaans. It has levels for beginners, intermediate and advanced learners. Each level includes collections of audio and video lessons. Other options at each level include classes on reading, writing, listening comprehension, and culture and courses that narrowly focus on things like pronunciation, survival skills, or everyday living. 

The “Advanced Audio Blogs” on AfrikaansPod101 are useful for more advanced learners. These are quick audio courses that concentrate on a certain subject. Other features include a built-in dictionary, a “Word of the Day” feature, a list of the 2000 most frequent Afrikaans terms, and flashcards to help students remember new vocabulary.

Final Thoughts

Learning Afrikaans is not that difficult, given how much it resembles Dutch. In addition to being widely spoken in South Africa (as well as other foreign communities), it is also regarded as an “easy” language by the Foreign Service Institute (FSI). Nonetheless, you cannot learn Afrikaans on Duolingo. But you can learn it on other apps such as AfikaansPod101, Memrise, Clozemaster, etc. These platforms will undoubtedly be excellent alternatives since they provide various games and organized content.

Duolingo Afrikaans – FAQ

Is Afrikaans easy to learn?

Unexpectedly, Afrikaans is a simple language to learn compared to other languages. This is partly because of its creole heritage, which makes it grammatically close to its native language, Dutch. Furthermore, since many of its related terms have Germanic origins, learning Afrikaans won’t be as difficult if you’re already acquainted with Germanic languages like English, German, and Dutch.

Why should I learn Afrikaans?

You should learn Afrikaans for several reasons. Learning Afrikaans will enable communication with people while you travel across South Africa. Even though English is widely spoken there, knowing it well will make it easier for you to interact with locals.

Additionally, because Dutch and Afrikaans have some mutual intelligibility, studying Afrikaans will also help you learn Dutch. Most of its grammar and vocabulary have origins in Dutch, which it “descended” from.

Furthermore, studying Afrikaans will eventually provide a stronger understanding of the movements, art, and ideas connected with the language, given its pervasive history and culture.

How long will It take to learn Afrikaans?

The U.S. Foreign Service Institute (FSI) categorized Afrikaans as a Category 1 language, which means it is comparable to English. The FSI advises devoting 23–24 weeks (575–600 hours) to studying Afrikaans to improve fluency. 

Why is Afrikaans not on Duolingo?

Duolingo did not give any reason for not including Afrikaans in its list of languages. However, there are several possible reasons. Lack of demand is one possible explanation for why Duolingo hasn’t yet created an Afrikaans course. Duolingo creates courses in response to demand.

Additionally, Duolingo discontinued its volunteer contributor program in 2021 owing to administrative and financial issues. Consequently, they no longer solicit input from the public about language-learning programs.