Afrikaans English Dictionary

This dictionary caters for lack in user-friendliness of existing bilingual ones.

This Afrikaans-English dictionary was born because of years of marking essays and letters of second (and in some cases even third and fourth) language learners of Afrikaans at school level, from grade 4 up to grade 12.

Learners could not be blamed for consulting canonical Afrikaans-English dictionaries and writing down the first translation equivalent. An often used example is the translation equivalent of “match” (i.e. a sports match). The first Afrikaans translation equivalent for this “match” to be found in dictionaries would almost always be “vuurhoutjie” (which is something with which to light a fire). This is of course far from the required “wedstryd”.

Learners would be very disappointed when teachers indicate that their hard work is rewarded with nothing but a red underlined indication that it is wrong 9with the accompanying lower assessment of their written work). The English sentence, “We will be playing a rugby match against our neighbouring school this afternoon” should not be “Ons speel vanmiddag ‘n rugby vuurhoutjie teen ons buurskool” nie, maar wel “Ons speel vanmiddag ‘n rugbywedstryd teen ons buurskool.”

The problem with these dictionaries is that it is merely adaptations of often Dutch dictionaries to the South African schooling system. The scientific approach of compiling dictionaries (i.e. the metalexicographical) requirement of frequency of use of entries taken up in dictionaries was not taken into account, especially for learners at school (where “match” in the sense of sport instead of “something to light a fire/cigarette with”) would be the most frequently used homonym. “Match” in the sense of “vuurhoutjie” would be more used for adults (and therefore perhaps more frequently used in a dictionary earmarked for adults).

This is only one of many such instances where most of our Afrikaans-English school dictionaries are not at all user-friendly. In fact, most of our South African lexicographers classify these types of dictionaries as such. Something has admittedly been done recently to publish dictionaries that take the dictionary user into account more.

The more than 30 000 entries in this user-friendly dictionary has been compiled by collecting more than 3 000 000 words from articles most frequently used by learners from Grade 1 to grade 12 (amongst others readers, text books, prescribed literature work, fables). All these entries were then populated by using example sentences and phrases from the more then 3 000 000 words. This dictionary is therefore applicable to all possible learners still at school – and even to university students with an Afrikaans background.

Furthermore, all Grade 1 and 2 learners (in 2016) have to offer three indigenous South African languages, and in many areas Afrikaans is one of these three languages. English forms part of the three languages In 90% of the combinations. In 2017 all Grade 3 learners will do the same three languages, and this will be applied every subsequent year, until the pilot group of Grade 1s enrolled in 2015 reaches Grade 12.

Technology is busy infiltrating all spheres of life, and also that of learners at school. Departments of education promote the use of cell phones and other devices to enhance the learning experience, and learners also prefer not to carry heavy and often thick books along to school. It therefore makes a lot of sense to have a user-friendly Afrikaans-English Dictionary (like this one) as a research tool on their devices.

Many people ask the question, “There are so many other dictionaries on the market. What is different about this bilingual dictionary?”

One of the outstanding features of this bilingual Afrikaans-English Dictionary is that one does not need to know the Afrikaans word in order to look up its usage in Afrikaans. One merely has to type in the English word and tap on the search button. The dictionary will then display ALL the entries in which one’s search word appear.