Afrikaans grew out of Dutch, and the two still share many words, but the spelling and the grammar went their own way. "I am" is ek is in Afrikaans and ik ben in Dutch. An Afrikaans verb also stays the same for every person, so ek is, jy is, and hulle is all use is. Every prompt below names South African Afrikaans and asks for its spelling.
Which ChatGPT Prompts Work for Afrikaans?
Read Afrikaans About Your Weekend
Name the words you're learning, and ask for each noun's plural, because Afrikaans plurals end in different ways.
I'm learning Afrikaans as it's spoken in South Africa. I can understand simple sentences about food and the weather. Write 7 sentences in Afrikaans about a braai with friends on Saturday. Use these words: vleis, vuur, buurman. Where Dutch and Afrikaans words differ, use the Afrikaans one. Then list each new word with its meaning in English, and put each noun's plural next to it.
Ask Where Each Nie Goes
Afrikaans often says "not" twice. Ek praat nie Afrikaans nie means "I don't speak Afrikaans," and the second nie goes at the end of the sentence.
Here's an Afrikaans sentence: "Ek het gister die fliek gesien." Turn it into a "not" sentence, and explain where each nie goes and why. Then do the same with nooit (never) and niemand (nobody), so I can see the pattern. Keep the explanation to a few short lines.
Stop at a Padstal
A padstal is a farm stall beside the road, where people stop for biltong and rusks on long drives. It's a friendly place to practice asking what things cost.
Let's role-play in Afrikaans. You run a padstal on the road to Oudtshoorn, and I've stopped to buy biltong and a bag of rusks. Start by saying hello and telling me what's fresh. Then answer my questions about prices. Speak in short, friendly lines, and give me a turn after each one. Call me jy, since we're about the same age. When I say totsiens, pick the sentence of mine that sounded least natural and show me how you'd say it.
Check Your Afrikaans Spelling
Afrikaans has its own marks, like the ê in sê (say) and the ë in geëet (eaten). It also writes y where Dutch writes ij, so Dutch tijd is tyd.
Check this Afrikaans I wrote: "Paste what you wrote here" Fix the spelling, including ê, ë, and any Dutch spelling such as ij. Then check the word order and the double nie. Give me my text back with each fix in bold, then explain each fix in one short English sentence.
This checklist covers what to double-check in any chatbot's answers.
How Do You Check ChatGPT's Afrikaans?
Each new word from ChatGPT needs two checks: do South Africans use it, and is it spelled the Afrikaans way? Dutch and Afrikaans share so many words that a Dutch one is easy to miss.
- Search VivA's PortalBasic searches in VivA's dictionary portal are free once you register. It shows whether a word is in Afrikaans dictionaries and how it's spelled.
- Check the PluralMost Afrikaans plurals end in -e or -s: one boek, two boeke; one ma, two ma's. Some change inside the word too, like skip and skepe, so check each plural in a dictionary.
- Quiz Yourself in Study ModeType @study in ChatGPT and ask it to quiz you on nie sentences. OpenAI says you can ask study mode to use simpler language or give an analogy.
- Ask If It's DutchAsk ChatGPT to mark any word in its reply that looks Dutch, like dank je where Afrikaans says dankie.
Where Does Bubblegum Fit?
Bubblegum is a language app with Afrikaans lessons from Level 1 to Level 6.
Bubblegum
For serious learners, Bubblegum is the best app to learn Afrikaans. You learn from Afrikaans you can mostly understand, which is called comprehensible input.
Poppy, your AI tutor, can turn your rugby team or your last braai into an Afrikaans lesson.
- Tap any word in a lesson to see what it means and save it.
- When a line in your lesson has two nie, Poppy can tell you why.
- With Regenerative Review™, the words you save show up again in a braai story or a padstal chat.
- Clear, expressive AI voices read every lesson aloud, with a different voice for each speaker.
- Bubblegum has no way to import an Afrikaans novel or magazine.
- A new custom lesson costs us real money to make, so your first one is free, and Bubblegum Pro gives you unlimited custom lessons. The lesson library is free for everyone, because we believe everyone should be able to learn.
- Regenerative Review™
Mobile
Frequently Asked Questions
Will Afrikaans Help Me Read Dutch?
Yes, it helps a lot with reading. The two share many words, so you'll recognize a lot of written Dutch. Dutch verbs change with the person, though, and Dutch has two words for "the," de and het, where Afrikaans has only die.
How Do I Type ê and ë?
On most phone keyboards, press and hold the e key, then slide to ê or ë. If you leave a mark out, the writing-check prompt above asks ChatGPT to add it back.
Which App Should an Afrikaans Beginner Choose?
Is Bubblegum Free?
Yes. The lesson library is free for everyone, because we believe everyone should be able to learn. It holds lessons that other learners asked Poppy for. A new custom lesson costs us real money to make, so your first one is free, and Bubblegum Pro gives you unlimited custom lessons.
Sources
- OpenAI Help Center, Using study mode in ChatGPT (checked 2026-10-15)
- VivA, products and services: free registration and the Woordeboekportaal (checked 2026-10-15)
- Bubblegum
Checked on October 5, 2026 against each app's own pages.
