English Language

Most S.Ans speak English and it’s 1 of their 11 official languages. Obv. the fluency with which individuals speak it varies dramatically. Most speak it as it is their language of commerce. At first I thought it was odd they’ve chose English to be the common language spoke in S.A. when its not a language native to S.A., however I later reassessed this, realising it avoided favouring or disadvantaging any particular S.An culture.

Interesting, they also have some words which are their English words but which we don’t have in England, such as braii instead of BBQ and tekkies instead of trainers. Also, they often use English words to refer to something which we have a different name for, E.G. they call seat belts, ‘safety belts’, they say ‘stay’ instead of ‘live’, and they call traffic lights, ‘robots’!! They also had phrases we don't use, i.e. when we may say 'really?', they say 'is it?', and when we would say 'me too', they say 'even me'.
Annoying, they often speak American English too!
And, many of them make the same mistakes when speaking English, such as many saying ‘having’ when they meant ‘have’ which is quite confusing when someone tells you they are having 5 children!!
Also, they often leave words out, i.e. 'see you, Friday, 2', rather than 'see you on Friday at 2'.

Nonetheless every single person I met spoke better English than I spoke their native language!