6 Best And Worst Online Afrikaans Courses For 2023

Looking for the best online Afrikaans course to learn the language?

Afrikaans is rising in popularity, as more and more course options are being released.

In addition to tourism and foreign language careers, the benefits of speaking Afrikaans cannot be overstated.

Today I’m going to give you my rundown of the best (and worst) online Afrikaans courses.

Below you’ll find pros and cons for each Afrikaans course, pricing and a summary. Where applicable, I’ll link to a review of the course.

IMPORTANT: Some of the items listed below are probably only loosely defined as “courses” for Afrikaans. The reason I’ve included them is that they’re popular enough Afrikaans tools and therefore should be included.

DISCLAIMER: The comments below are personal opinions and some affiliate links are used.

The best Afrikaans courses online (most popular Afrikaans resources)

1. AfrikaansPod101

Cost: Starts as low as $4 a month.

Summary: AfrikaansPod101 is a brilliant online resource for learning Afrikaans (especially listening comprehension). If you’re into podcast learning especially, this might be the course for you.

AfrikaansPod101 uses audio lessons similar to podcasts. Lessons are suitable for beginners through more advanced levels. The instruction not only includes listening skills but also incorporates essential vocabulary and grammar with loads of other useful features.

What I like:

• Large and always expanding variety of Afrikaans lesson material
• Clean lesson interface and downloadable content

What I don’t like:

• Content choices are sparse beyond the beginner level
• Too much English banter
• While the lesson interface is nice, the rest of the site is overwhelming and confusing to navigate

UNIQUE OFFER: Use the code MEZZOGUILD to save 25% on any of their Afrikaans course options.

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2. italki

Cost: Prices vary widely

Summary: italki connects learners with tutors, teachers and conversation partners. As with similar services, it doesn’t a curriculum or content to instructors - just facilitates.

The good thing about italki is their vetted onboarding process for teachers which ensures quality. italki has earned its amazing reputation.

Teachers succeed on italki through client feedback, meaning subpar teachers simply will not cut it on the platform.

What I like:

• Facilitates great connections with expert teachers.

What I don’t like:

• No set curriculum means you could be paired with an inexperienced new teacher not yet weeded out by italki’s review system.

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3. Memrise

Cost: Free

Summary: Memrise moved its free “community” courses to a site called Decks a while back, while it continues to run a premium subscription on the original Memrise site.

From what I see, Decks is identical to what Memrise use to offer.

Decks are 100% free community-added courses (Afrikaans and others) in the form of a gamified flashcard deck. You select a language or dialect, then go through a flashcard game of “watering plants”. It’s highly addictive and actually quite effective.

Some courses are excellent but not all courses are good. Look for ones that include audio and ones that teach phrases rather than single words.

See my video on downloading Decks to Anki.

What I like:

• It’s an effective memorization tool for phrases and words.
• The addictive nature of the game gets you coming back often to continue learning.
• It’s all free.
• There are loads of community-driven courses to choose from.

What I don’t like:

• As it’s community-driven, you can’t always guarantee quality.

Read this Memrise review.

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4. Afrikaans.us

Cost: Free

Summary: Afrikaans.us offers loads of free Afrikaans course content. It’s a really poorly-designed website, but if you can look past that, it’s a handy course to start with.

What I like:

• Free
• Covers quite a lot of Afrikaans content

What I don’t like:

• Old site with a terrible design
• Confusing navigation

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5. Transparent Language

Cost: Pricing varies

Summary: Transparent is one of the most surprising online Afrikaans courses I’ve tried.

The system and interface are antiquated and slow which is a real drawback, but if you can look past it, Transparent Language provides a real depth of Afrikaans course content.

The voice recognition comparison is non-existent in Transparent Language. It relies on recording on your voice and showing you your sound wave to compare with the native speaker’s sound wave.

No inbuilt system to automatically compare sounds.

The Transparent Language course has a “Produce it. Say it.” section that literally asks you “Were you right?”.

In other words, no way to automatically detect whether you were correct or not – it relies on your own determination. This is incredibly outdated.

Overall, if you can look past the outdated design and deficient voice recording aspect, Transparent Language Afrikaans is an outstanding course option.

What I like:

• Afrikaans dialogue is 100% natural speed
• Extensive coverage and depth of content

What I don’t like:

• Outdated and slow interface that’s a pain to navigate
• Pronunciation section has no inbuilt voice recognition to compare to native dialogue

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6. uTalk

Cost: $4.99 monthly per language, $9.99 for all 140 languages, $99.99 for a lifetime subscription

Summary: uTalk is essentially a fancy flashcard app, an alternative to Memrise and a great way to learn words and phrases in hundreds of different languages.

There are thousands of potential language pair combinations and tons of native speaker audio recordings with picture associations.

What I like:

• Authentic native speaker audio
• Hundreds of available languages
• Thousands of potential language combinations
• Easily affordable

What I don’t like:

• Sloppy UI
• Games are mediocre
• Broad approach that isn’t tailored for specific languages

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Summary: Best online Afrikaans courses

This pretty much sums up every online Afrikaans course option currently available (if I missed one, let me know!).

In addition to an Afrikaans course, make sure you’re getting regular Afrikaans practice with native speakers.

For that, italki is the easiest way to find really inexpensive practice partners and tutors.

Just remember that even if you have all the courses on this list, you’ll still fail at Afrikaans without the right motivation, and even a poor Afrikaans course can be effective in the hands of someone with the right amount of determination to succeed.

For tips on how to learn Afrikaans and overcoming various language learning struggles, subscribe below by ‘Joining the Guild’ (select Afrikaans as your target language).

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Know of an Afrikaans course that I didn’t mention?

Share it below in the comment section.