WATCH: Local author’s daughter wins over hearts with her lagbol Afrikaanse sêgoed
|Published
NOW INSTA FAMOUS: Thaaminah Daniels, 19, a student at University of Cape Town
Mitchells Plain author Yusuf Daniels’ daughter Thaaminah is making waves on social media with her funny Afrikaanse praatjies.
The pretty 19-year-old from Lansdowne started trending on her father’s Facebook page quite by accident, and said it all began one day while on her way to a matric exam at Rustenburg Girls High School.
“It all started a few hours before my Afrikaans matric final exam. M dad decided to test me for my Afrikaans test in the car on my way to school,” she says
“My dad made a video of it and it was hilarious, it was the first time I had a full conversation in Afrikaans and realised I can’t speak the language but I can still understand it.”
Yusuf, who announced his engagement last week, says his Living Lekker Facebook page has gained an extra 30000 followers thanks to his daughter.
“People have been loving Thaaminah’s videos since she started, it makes them laugh and the views and shares are topping even my solo videos,” the proud 50-year-old dad says.
Thaaminah, the eldest of three children, has nearly 9000 followers on Instagram.
She’s also been out and about with her dad, selling his books, and making appearances at his Baxter show before it was shut down by the lockdown in December.
She’s currently in her second year at the University of Cape Town studying politics and is also a fierce gender-based violence campaigner.
But it is her broken Afrikaans that people love to hear, and their live videos are usually lit with comments.
Thaaminah says she might be swak in speaking Afrikaans, but she is “striving” and admits she loves listening to Afrikaans rapper Jack Parow, which, she says, is “weird, I know”.
“My final Afrikaans mark was 76%, so it's not that I'm too bad at it,” she says.
In their second video, she says she had a lot going on at school that day and her dad encouraged her to vent - in Afrikaans, of course.
“It didn't take a lot from me to just speak Afrikaans in my own way and it went lekker, I felt good and I am convinced my Afrikaans is improving,” she says.
People especially loved her rants about her false eyelashes, when she started looking for a new beautician as her current one wasn’t “appreciating” her.
Followers were quick to point out that the Afrikaans word for eyelashes is “wimpers” and since then she gives regular updates about them.
“My favourite Afrikaans words are ‘agterkompaar’ and ‘senuweeagtig’ because it rolls off the tongue lekker,” she says.
We were too nice to point out that “agterkompaar” is not an actual woord.
Her favourite phrase is: “My kop is suur, my hart is suur, my hele lewe is suur.”
Yusuf says the tables have turned and he has now become Thaaminah’s sidekick.
“She has totally taken over, people are loving her and my social media platforms now belong to her,” he jokes.
Check out Living Lekker FB page or @Thams on Instagram.