11-08-2007, 07:30 AM
1stKnight Wrote:How do you find Flemish - did you understand it relatively easily? My wife speaks 6 languages fluently and is Flemish but when we went to SA she found Afrikaans easy to read but hard to understand the spoken word. I think it is because Dutch in the Netherlands and SA isn't as 'soft' as the Dutch the Flemish speak.
Actually , in all my good years in SethEffrika , I never spoke Afrikaans properly , but could only understand and read : a little !
Nowadays , I can mostly follow the news on TV in Flemish , only that , with such multitude of all the other channels here , this hardly ever happens !
You are so very , very lucky to have such a talented , multilingual spouse !
Here , totally to the contrary , in the extreme : I am so unfairly handicapped again , since 99% of my working day is all in English AND then I come home to my S.A./Zimmies' wife who is only talking English again , only to be further accosted with the likes of BBC/Sky/CNN/CNBC on our TVs , and the Daily Mail and worse Brit-yellow-press all over the show ...yeuuuch !
No surprise , then , that I resort to websites and TV-programs in French and German and various others , when poss. , to maintain some balance and sanity ( the lovely Claire Chazal of France 1 news is "en vacances" , currently replaced by a similarly-very-talented younger blondie model! ) and a regular pit-stop at any friendly local bistro/brasserie also brightens up the picture of my linguistic exposure/s...