Southern Africa
Video Chat with People from South Africa
South Africa is one of the most linguistically varied places you can reach on video chat. Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, English, Sesotho, Setswana and several more are all official, and many people move between two or three of them in a single conversation. English is widely used in cities and online, so starting in English is easy. Your match might be in Johannesburg or Pretoria, in Cape Town under Table Mountain, in Durban on the warm Indian Ocean coast, or in Gqeberha on the Eastern Cape.
The country stays on South African Standard Time all year, two hours ahead of GMT with no daylight saving, so an 8 PM chat there falls in the early afternoon on the US East Coast and within an hour of the time in most of Europe. Rugby and the Springboks, cricket and football are reliable topics. So is music: amapiano was born here, and gqom and kwaito have deep local roots. Food talk flows too, whether it's a weekend braai, bunny chow from Durban, bobotie or biltong.
South Africa at a glance
| Flag | 🇿🇦 |
|---|---|
| Official name | Republic of South Africa |
| Capitals | Pretoria, Bloemfontein and Cape Town |
| Region | Africa · Southern Africa |
| Official languages | Afrikaans, English, Southern Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Southern Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Venda, Xhosa and Zulu |
| Currency | South African rand (R, ZAR) |
| Calling code | +27 |
| Time zone | South Africa Standard Time (Africa/Johannesburg) |
How to say hello
A few words of Afrikaans make a great first impression, even if you switch to English right after.
| Language | Phrase | Say it | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zulu | Sawubona | sah-woo-BOH-nah | Hello (literally "I see you") |
| Xhosa | Molo | MOH-loh | Hello |
| Afrikaans | Hallo, hoe gaan dit? | HAH-loh, hoo KHAHN dit | Hi, how's it going? |
| English (South African) | Howzit? | HOW-zit | Hey, what's up? (casual) |
Tips for chatting with people from South Africa
- If someone greets you with "Sawubona," the reply is "Yebo, sawubona" (YEH-boh), meaning "Yes, I see you too."
- In South African English, "now now" means soon and "just now" means a bit later, so "I'll be back just now" doesn't mean this second. Our guide to understanding English accents has more on local quirks like these.
- Ask for a song: an amapiano track, some gqom or a favorite local artist will often turn a quick hello into a long chat.
- Ask which city or province someone is in; Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban each have their own pace, food and slang.
Only meet people from South Africa
Omlet matches you Worldwide by default. To meet only people from South Africa, use the country filter, the only filter Omlet has:
- Open Omlet and press Country on the control panel.
- Search for South Africa and select it.
- Press Start. Press Next to meet someone else from South Africa, or switch back to Worldwide any time.
Your first day is free: you add a card through Stripe to start it, and nothing is charged that day. When the 24 hours end, the country filter costs $3 one time, charged to that card, unless you cancel before then in Settings (if you cancel, you can still pick a country until the day ends). It's not a subscription, and it stays unlocked on that device and browser. It doesn't carry over to other devices or browsers, and clearing your browser data removes it. There's one free day per device, home network and card. Payment goes through Stripe, so Omlet never sees your card number.
The filter works both ways, and matching can be slower when fewer people from South Africa are online. Chatting itself is free, and Worldwide matching never costs anything.
Your own country is detected automatically and shown to the people you meet as a flag.
Neighboring countries
South Africa borders 6 countries. Curious about the people next door? Meet them too:
- Botswana
- Eswatini
- Lesotho
- Mozambique
- Namibia
- Zimbabwe