by French is the main language that is spoken in Central Africa. It’s very important that you learn it well. Here are some helpful vocabulary words to know because they are used in everyday life in Central Africa.
Mud – la boue. Boue is everywhere during the rainy season.
Puddle of water – flaq d’eau. There are lots of water puddles during the rainy season. It’s pronounced “flak d’eau”.
Big River – fleuve. You would use this when describing a large river like “le Fleuve Congo” or “le Fleuve Wouari”
Market or shopping – le marché. We would do shopping or le marché about once every two to three weeks.
Electricity – le courant. If you want to say the electricity is gone or went away you would say, “le courant est parti” or “le courant est coupé”. Which happens a lot in certain apartments.
Store – boutique. « On part pour le boutique » We’re going to the store. « Le boutique est ferme » The store is closed. There are these small stores called boutiques that sell snacks and bread that we would go to almost daily.
Soda – Jus. In the mission they only call all soda “jus” which translates into juice. You won’t hear “soda” ever being said usually instead of saying “soda” you will specify what kind of soda that you want like Coke or Sprite and they will understand what you are talking about.
Rain storm – une tempête. A rainstorm is une tempête de pluie. These happen about 2-4 times a week during the rainy season and can be very intense.
Thunder – le tonnerre. You will get a lot of thunderstorms during the rainy season. Even thunderstorms without rain. They’re really beautiful especially at night just seeing the thunder in the clouds. They’re like explosions in the sky. Very beautiful.
A Flood – une inondation. Flooding happens usually in Pointe-Noire in Congo and in Douala in Cameroon. Not so much in Brazzaville or Yaoundé as far as I know.
Transfers – le mutation. Transfers happened every six weeks when I was in the mission.
Spoiled – abimé. “Cette nourriture est abimé” This food is spoiled.
Malaria – le paludisme. It’s a very important word to know. If you take your anti-malarial pills you should be safe from malaria.
Doté – endowed. This is just a word that’s important to know. I learned it in the Ghana MTC because I was the only in my apartment who was endowed and my Congolese companion asked me if I was “doté” and using the powers of context I realized he was asking me if I was endowed.
