Posts Tagged ‘South Africa’

South African (English) Language Peculiarities

Thursday, March 7th, 2013

One thing that is always interesting in a new country are the peculiarities of the language. South Africa has 11 official languages, and in Johannesburg you get around quite easily with English (which is one of them, obviously). The (white) South African accent is quite strong. Generally, it sounds similar to the Kiwi or Australian accent, but it has its own sound – particularly that in many vowels or vowel combinations that have two sounds (five, south), only the first sound is really audible – so “five” becomes “faav” (with the “a” pronounced as in the British “can’t”).

In addition to how things are being said, there is of course also what is being said. For one thing, the South Africans are even more extreme than US Americans in asking “How are you” as part of every greeting. Alternatively, the shortened South African form can be used: “Howzit?” Related is the confirmatory question “Izzit?” which is used basically like “okay” – and does not have to follow a sentence with “is” in it at all (for example “I bought a car yesterday” – “oh izzit?”).

Other words that are commonly used come from Dutch/Afrikaans roots, such as “Braai” for barbeque, “lekker” for nice or “bakkie” for a pickup truck. The cutest local word, in my opinion, however, is “robot” – which simply means a set of traffic lights, but it is quite funny to imagine that a robot is standing on an intersection controlling the traffic… 🙂

Day to Day Life is Starting Again

Wednesday, March 6th, 2013

This week, both of us started working again. Thankfully, we’re both not super busy with work yet, as there are still some things that need to be sorted out. We moved into our new apartment last weekend, and by now we have also both bought cars, but there are more administrative things to be done.

The apartment that we eventually moved into is in Morningside, a few kilometers north of the Sandton CBD where we both work. Now the place is still pretty empty, since the container with our furniture is only going to arrive in about two weeks. So for the time being, there is no furniture in the apartment other than a mattress, a fridge, and a washing machine. Thankfully, kitchen and cupboards are built in so we can at least cook and store our things. I will also not post any pictures yet for that same reason – it looks a bit bare-bones now.

I also bought a car last week – the first car I own myself after having driven only parents’, friends’ and rental cars up to now. It’s a small car, of course, but quite a significant investment before even getting my first salary after 15 months of studying.

5 Continents in P6 Pt. 8: Getting Settled in Johannesburg

Thursday, February 21st, 2013

After a brief pit stop in Germany (mainly to pick up our luggage and our visas, which thankfully arrived in time), we flew to our fifth and final continent over the course of two months: Africa. This time, however, the destination was more permanent, as we are both going to start working in Johannesburg in March. That also means that our daily program in the first few days here so far consisted less of sightseeing and more of sorting out the practicalities – finding an apartment, getting a bank account, and buying cars. Johannesburg is a car city, there is only very limited public transport and the city is quite spread out, so you need a car. So far, it looks like we are making good progress on these tasks.

We really like the city as far as we can tell up to now. It is really green (the guide book says it “must be the largest man-made forest with six million trees”), the climate is really nice (not too hot but quite pleasant, and the winters are also supposed to be rather mild at least in the day time), and the food is really good and quite affordable. Safety-wise we were a bit concerned in the beginning, but as long as you are watching out it seems to be quite alright. We are definitely both very excited to be here and spend the forseeable future here!

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