Hello Language Lovers! Thank you for joining me for this episode of Speaking Tongues- the podcast in conversation with multilinguals. Today, I have the honor of speaking with my guest Thando about her language of IsiZulu and about amaZulu culture.

Thando talks to us about growing up in kwaZulu Natal - an isiZulu speaking region of South Africa but speaking isiXhosa at home. We learn about language education during apartheid and what kind of access students had to their own languages and world languages and its lingering effects of this time in South African history. Most of all, in this conversation we learn a TON about the ins and outs of isiZulu including the prefixes one uses to determine the subjects we’re discussing, dialects and speech patterns of isiZulu speakers throughout kwaZulu and some similarities between isiZulu & isiXhosa. We also find out what isiZulu verbs have in common, which sounds we should be focusing on in isiZulu and Thando is giving THE ultimate lesson in clicks which I encourage you all listening to follow along with. Spoiler alert: I make a ton of mistakes but that’s all a part of learning a new language! And there’s even a portion of a song that gets sung in this episode in which you will find out which one of us has the singing voice of an angel!  Another thing to take note of,  in this conversation, when you hear the word “colored” please know that in South Africa, it applies to a multiracial ethnic group native to Southern Africa and does not carry the negative stigma that it does here in the US.

Huge massive thank you to Thando for this conversation and for sharing so much of your language and culture with us. I don’t know about anyone else listening but I’m 100% ready to visit South Africa again! I will be setting up a Patreon soon with extras that didn’t make it into the final conversations so stay tuned for that because Thando and I talked about so much more than what you will hear in this episode.  If you enjoy this episode, don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review the Speaking Tongues Podcast on Apple Podcasts so that other language lovers like ourselves can find the show! And, If you’ve been a long time listener of the show or a recent listener, you can now support the show on Buy Me a Coffee dot com. Links to all platforms are in the show notes! 

To Find Thando:

Instagram@ zuluwiththando

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCItccl2467atXjy_A7xBFZA

Website: https://zululessons.com/

Speaking Tongues Podcast:

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