Afrikaans to English translations [Non-PRO]
Art/Literary - Social Science, Sociology, Ethics, etc. / Languages | | Afrikaans term or phrase: Geseënde Kersfees en 'n gelukkige nuwe jaar | I'd like to wish a friend from South Africa a "Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year", but I'm not sure of the proper pronunciation of the above phrase.
It would be nice that I could pronounce it well enough that she can understand it!
Thanks! |
| | | English translation:Geseënde Kersfees en 'n gelukkige nuwe jaar | Explanation:
Sometimes a Dutch text-to-speech program can be used to approximate the Afrikaans pronunciation. To fool the Dutch program into speaking with an Afrikaans accent and pronunciation takes a bit of experimentation, though.
Try pasting this line:
gesieënde kersfieës enne gelukkige nuuwe jaar
into this online text-to-speech program:
http://www.fluency.nl/international.htm
and use the "Arthur" voice (the other voices produce less accurate results with the above line of text). The pronunciation of the second vowel in "Kersfees" is still not quite right but it is fairly close to the Afrikaans pronunciation. The "w" in "nuwe" should also be crisper (rather like the "v" in English).
The reason why you can't simply paste the Afrikaans text as-is, is because the Dutch pronounce "eë" (or "ee"), "'n" and "uwe" different from Afrikaners. Another reason is that Dutch people tend to put stress on different parts of the sentence.
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Note added at 9 hrs (2009-11-24 09:17:59 GMT)
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If you want to say "voorspoedige" instead of "gelukkige", paste the following text: gesieënde kersfieës enne voeërspoedige nuuwe jaar. Again, the Dutch say "voor" very different from Afrikaners, hence the little trick to type "voeër" in the Dutch text-to-speech web site. |
| Selected response from:
 Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 22:21
| Grading comment Thanks to all for responding! It really helped.
I talked with my South African friend about the pronunciation. She had a laugh over my feable attempt! I realize now that there can be very large differences between the Dutch and Afrikaans pronunciation!
Thanks!
John
4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer |
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| Discussion entries: 0 |
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Automatic update in 00:
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6 hrs confidence:  Geseende Kersfees en 'n voorspoedige jaar
Explanation:
Hi, I am no expert in phonetics, but I am going to try my best. First, the general saying is voorspoedige nuwe jaar,
g=like the dutch ch
chaseenda karsphees en (like in ben) a phoorspudiche yaar
Hope this helps!
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Note added at 6 hrs (2009-11-24 06:27:19 GMT)
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the "a" in chaseenda is pronounced like "a tree", that a
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