can dutch speakers understand afrikaans easily or is it difficult?

Answer 1

It is difficult. Many of the Afrikaans words are either no longer used in the Netherlands, or never existed in the Netherlands. It is easy to read for Dutch people though. Pronunciation is different in some cases too.

You could compare it to a Frenchman travelling to Romania. He'll be able to read most things, but will have a very hard time understanding people.

Speaking and reading are not equally easy. In the Netherlands almost every TV-programme which has people speaking a Dutch dialect are being subtitled. Like the Belgians who speak Flemish/Dutch are being subtitled and that language is much closer to Dutch than Afrikaans is. But also people from the Limburg province in the South or the Frisians in the North, or for that matter the Twents in the East get subtitled :-) It seems only the people in the West don't get subtitled.....

Answer 2

It's rather easy being the afrikaans almost the same language as the Dutch of the years 1500-1600.
Dutch has evolved a lot from then but bases are commons.
I feel is something similar to what happens with Spanish and Italian, both evolved from Latin.
I've been in South Afrika and I could understand really a lot of the Afrikaans words by reading them. I know just some Dutch but this helped me and then I figure a Dutch native speaker can easily understand written Afrikaans.
Edit #1 - I guess it's harder the mutual understanding of the spoken language due to the different pronounce.

Answer 3

Afrikaans is a combination of Dutch, English and French, however i has extra impact of the Dutch language, when you do speak with one a different , take it gradual, in order that each and every phrase will also be heard certainly

Answer 4

good question. I would like to know the answer.

Answer 5

i heared yes...