I watched this on Sky player and there were no subtitles for the bits spoken in the native African tongue (I'm afraid I can't recall the exact dialect) - was that the case for the dvd/cinema release?
shareIt was like that in the cinema release also
share[deleted]
There are several native languages in South Africa, but I believe this was Xhosa (http://www.southafrica.info/about/people/language.htm). I know a smattering of Zulu and 2 cursewords in a Xhosa/English slang but it's playing on HBO at the moment with English subtitles so no worries!
To be honest even after 11 years of working with, and 5 years of marriage with an Anglo-South African even I from time to time have issues with the amount of Dutch/Afrikaans/Native Tongue/Indian/Queens English etc. words littered in their version of English (not to mention syntax and longer sentence structure that is considered wrong in American English) even understanding plain'ole English can be rough at times.
Personally I have an issue with Haysbert's accent it's not nearly enough like Mandela's - especially the timbre of voice - VERY distracting in my book.