
In any case, one of the advantages of the that popularity of the series is the wide availability of the book in many languages--67 so far. My current rather feeble attempts at learning Afrikaans center mainly around deciphering dialogue passages in my translated copies. It's not a very effective way to learn a language, but as I don't have any native speakers on hand I have to make do.
Reading books is best practice for people who are already fairly good at a language, I think. If one has a decent vocabulary and grammar, pounding thousands of words helps build the instinctive knowledge that one needs to be truly fluent. For me, the Spanish was at about the right level. I know that if I were serving in a Spanish-speaking country I would be completely fluent by now (sigh). Reading the Afrikaans books doesn't help that much--yet. But I figure language learning is one of those things that rewards time and persistence more than technique. I'll keep after it.
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