WATCH | 5 times Charlize Theron spoke 'dying language' Afrikaans in Hollywood

17 November 2022 - 11:00
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Charlize Theron has BEEN speaking Afrikaans.
Charlize Theron has BEEN speaking Afrikaans.
Image: Steve Granitz/WireImage

South African-born Hollywood star Charlize Theron has called Afrikaans a “dying” and unhelpful language, despite advocating it on several occasions in Hollywood.

Charlize got tongues wagging when she joked on the SmartLess podcast that “there's about 44 people still speaking” Afrikaans and called it “a dying language”.

“It's not a very helpful language,” she added.

She claimed to have not spoken English until she was around 19 and only focused on learning the language when she left home for America.

However, she has spoken the language with pride in Hollywood, often to the delight of audiences.

Here are just five times she 'praat'ed the 'taal' in America:

A LESSON IN SLANG

The Atomic Blonde star taught David Oyelowo and Vanity Fair some Afrikaans slang, including stukkie and bakvissie.

The video was popular with over four million views on YouTube.

LIVE ON CNN

In 2011, Charlize sat down with then CNN host Piers Morgan, and taught him a few words of her home language.

Charlize admitted it was difficult to be an Afrikaans speaker when there was only one other person who spoke the language around her.

A RED CARPET MOMENT IN AFRIKAANS

In 2019 she took to the red carpet at the South by Southwest festival and was asked when last she spoke Afrikaans.

She responded with a few lines in the language and saying her mom spoke to her in the language.

DROPPING AFRIKAANS SWEAR WORDS

Charlize taught the audience some Afrikaans swear words during an interview with First we Feast in 2018.

DISSES IN AFRIKAANS

Charlize told James Corden she often spoke Afrikaans in public with her mother and was complaining about someone in the language when the man turned around and responded in Afrikaans.

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James asks Charlize Theron about her and her mom's conversations in their native tongue, Afrikaans, and learns that it...

Posted by The Late Late Show with James Corden on Friday, March 9, 2018

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