Can Afrikaans people and Dutch people understand each other?
Afrikaans and Dutch are very closely related and are more or less mutually understandable. More about that here. Dutch’s grammar is a bit more complex than Afrikaans’, but they share a lot of the same vocabulary, albeit with slightly different spellings and pronunciations. Comparing Afrikaans and Dutch is somewhat like comparing Norwegian Bokmål and Danish. It is a commonly held belief that Afrikaans people tend to understand Dutch quite well, and Dutch people generally need more time to understand Afrikaans. The truth of this claim may vary from individual to individual. Some Afrikaans people claim to understand written Dutch better than spoken Dutch.
