Trevor Noah Teams Up with Duolingo to Teach South Africa‛s Popular Languages By Parker Diakite
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outh African comedian Trevor Noah has teamed up with the free language app giant Duolingo to help teach South Africa’s most popular languages. Zulu and Xhosa are two of the country’s most spoken languages, as they are two of 11 official languages in the country and among the most widely spoken in homes. Duolingo says it has teamed up with the Trevor Noah Foundation and its partner Nal’ibali, an organization that promotes multilingual reading, to create the courses. Adding Zulu and Xhosa to Duolingo means there will be three African-language courses offered on the app. The Swahili course, which was added in 2017, has more than 363,000 active users, as reported in QZ Africa. Trevor, who speaks five languages fluently including, English, Afrikaans, Zulu, Tswana, and Tsonga, says he’s excited that two South African languages will be offered on the app. “Xhosa because I want to start learning it and
Miscellaneous The government will ensure that the certificate of ancestry provided is authentic, as well as any other certificates presented to support your case. Once approved, all applicants will need to physically be in Sierra Leone at least five days prior to the conferment ceremony to complete the administrative processes like fingerprinting and immigration interviews. A mandatory two or three-day workshop focused on heritage, investment, and civic education will also be held. Once completed, the request for passport processing will be made.
speaking it fluently. And then Zulu, just so I can brush up while I’m not in my country,” he told Duolingo co-founder and CEO Luis von Ahn in a discussion about the new languages being added, but warned, “you’re gonna need a whole section in Xhosa just to teach people about the clicks.” Xhosa, known as the “click-click language” is said to be one of the most difficult languages in the world for native English speakers. Spoken in South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Lesotho, Xhosa is one of many African languages that use click consonants. There are 18 clicks that get articulated in three different places: the back of the teeth, the roof of the mouth, and the side of the mouth, according to Translate Day. In addition to Zulu and Xhosa, Duolingo announced that the Austrialnesian language Tagalog, Eastern Polynesian language Māori, and Haitian Creole will also be added to the lineup. The languages will be offered to the world beginning in 2022. https://travelnoire.com/trevor-noah-teams-duolingosouth-africa Image credit: GQ
A conferment ceremony will be confirmed by the authorities and successful applicants will be asked to take an oath of allegiance in front of the president during this time. For further information about acquiring citizenship abroad in Sierra Leone contact info@ mrcsl.org, mfkargbo@gmail.com, or fm.momoh@ mrcsl.org and annmariekay81@gmail.com. https://travelnoire.com/steps-for-citizenship-inafrica Imaage credit: maximumimpacttravel.com
47 | ABA Publications | Africa TRAVEL | Sept 2021
