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🇳🇱 → 🇿🇦

How easy is Afrikaans for Dutch speakers?

Going from Dutch to Afrikaans (Afrikaans) has a composite linguistic distance of 9% (curated lexical data). Below is the dimension-by-dimension breakdown.

9% distance FSI Cat I (Easiest) — 600–750 hours
Lexical similarity
85%

Shared vocabulary, cognates, and loanwords.

Grammatical distance
86%

Morphology, syntax, word order, cases.

Phonological similarity
100%

Shared sounds and phoneme inventory.

Writing-system match
100%

Latin → Latin

Genealogical kinship
100%

Indo-European ↔ Indo-European

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Sample sentences side-by-side

How everyday sentences look in both languages:

🇳🇱 Dutch
Het huis staat naast de rivier en heeft een grote tuin.
🇿🇦 Afrikaans
Die huis staan langs die rivier en het 'n groot tuin.
🇳🇱 Dutch
De boeken liggen op de tafel in de kamer.
🇿🇦 Afrikaans
Die boeke lê op die tafel in die kamer.

Curated cognates between Dutch and Afrikaans

Word pairs that share a common etymological root — instantly recognisable across both languages:

Other easy languages for Dutch speakers

The 5 languages with the lowest linguistic distance from Dutch:

Think you can tell them apart?

A quick 3-question check between Dutch and Afrikaans. No signup.