Most of the Afrikaans adjective system fits on a single page, and seeing it whole — before you drill any one part — is the fastest way to stop second-guessing yourself. The entire system reduces to one contrast plus a comparison rule: an adjective is bare after the noun and often takes -e before the noun, it never agrees for gender or number, and you compare it with -er and -ste. That is genuinely the whole thing. This checklist runs through each rule with an example so you can see how the pieces lock together; each item then has a dedicated page for the fine print.
The five rules at a glance
| # | Rule | Example |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Predicative (after the noun) → bare | Die huis is groot. |
| 2 | Attributive (before the noun) → often +e | die mooie blom |
| 3 | No gender or number agreement | die groot huis / die groot huise |
| 4 | Comparison: -er / -ste | groot → groter → grootste |
| 5 | A short list of irregulars | ou, goeie, nuwe, beter |
Internalise that table and everything below is just the detail filling it in.
Rule 1 — Predicative is always bare
When the adjective comes after the noun and is linked by a verb like is ("is/are"), it never changes. No ending, no stem change, ever. This is the easy half of the system and it behaves exactly like English (the house is big).
Die huis is groot.
The house is big.
Daardie berge is hoog.
Those mountains are high.
My kar is nuut.
My car is new.
Note hoog and nuut in their bare predicative shape — hoog, not hoë; nuut, not nuwe. The stem changes you are about to meet belong to the attributive form only.
Rule 2 — Attributive often takes -e
When the adjective comes before the noun, it often takes -e. This is the one genuinely tricky part of the whole system, and adding -e frequently reshapes the stem rather than just gluing on a letter.
Wat 'n mooie blom!
What a beautiful flower!
Hulle het 'n hoë muur om die erf gebou.
They built a high wall around the property.
Ek soek 'n warm trui vir die winter.
I'm looking for a warm jumper for the winter.
Whether -e appears depends on how the word ends (its sound and syllable count) and, for a few words, on sheer lexical habit. The full rule set — and the stem changes like hoog → hoë — lives on attributive -e. For this checklist, just hold two facts: attributive often means +e, and +e can change the spelling of the stem.
Rule 3 — No gender, no number agreement
Savour this one, especially if you come from German, Dutch, French, or Spanish. The Afrikaans adjective never agrees with its noun for gender (a category Afrikaans does not even have) or for number. Singular or plural, the adjective form is identical.
die groot huis en die groot huise
the big house and the big houses
'n rooi appel en drie rooi appels
a red apple and three red apples
The plural noun huise or appels pulls no change onto the adjective — groot stays groot, rooi stays rooi. So the only alternation in the entire system is the attributive -e of Rule 2. There is nothing else to track.
Rule 4 — Comparison: -er and -ste
To say bigger and biggest, Afrikaans adds -er for the comparative and -ste for the superlative — the same Germanic pattern English uses in bigger / biggest, with no more/most analytic forms for ordinary adjectives.
| Base | Comparative (-er) | Superlative (-ste) | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| groot | groter | grootste | big |
| klein | kleiner | kleinste | small |
| mooi | mooier | mooiste | beautiful |
| oud | ouer | oudste | old |
Hierdie kamer is groter as die ander een.
This room is bigger than the other one.
Sy is die oudste van die drie susters.
She is the eldest of the three sisters.
Two quick notes you will meet in full on the comparative: "than" is as (not dan), and a comparative or superlative used attributively still follows the -e logic of Rule 2 (die groter kamer, die mooiste blom). A few longer or borrowed adjectives prefer meer ("more") and mees ("most") instead, much like English more interesting.
Rule 5 — The irregulars worth memorising
A small set of very common adjectives changes shape unpredictably in the attributive form. These are frequent enough that you should simply learn them cold rather than derive them.
| Predicative (bare) | Attributive | Meaning | What happens |
|---|---|---|---|
| oud | die ou man | old | final d drops, no -e added |
| goed | 'n goeie idee | good | irregular stem goei- + e |
| nuut | 'n nuwe kar | new | t drops, w appears, + e |
| hoog | 'n hoë muur | high | g drops, diaeresis on e |
Die ou man vertel altyd dieselfde staaltjie.
The old man always tells the same story.
Dit is 'n goeie idee om vroeg te begin.
It's a good idea to start early.
Ons het 'n nuwe kar gekoop.
We bought a new car.
Watch ou especially: it is the odd one out because it takes no -e at all — it is die ou man, never die oue man. The others do end in -e but reshape the stem to get there. And comparison has its own irregular: goed compares as goed → beter → beste (good/better/best), exactly like English. The complete list, including sag → sagte and the -d/-g/-w alternations, is on ou and the irregulars.
Common mistakes
❌ Die huis is grote.
Incorrect — predicative adjectives are bare; never add -e after the noun.
✅ Die huis is groot.
The house is big.
❌ die groote huis
Incorrect — 'groot' is on the no-e list; it stays bare even attributively.
✅ die groot huis
the big house
❌ die oue man / die oud man
Incorrect — 'oud' becomes 'ou' attributively: the d drops and no -e is added.
✅ die ou man
the old man
❌ Hierdie een is groter dan daardie een.
Incorrect — 'than' is 'as', not 'dan', in the comparative.
✅ Hierdie een is groter as daardie een.
This one is bigger than that one.
❌ rooie appels (forcing -e because the noun is plural)
Incorrect — adjectives never agree for number, and 'rooi' stays bare here: 'rooi appels'.
✅ rooi appels
red apples
Key takeaways
- Predicative = bare (die huis is groot); attributive = often +e (die mooie blom) — this one contrast is the whole system.
- Adjectives have no gender or number agreement; the only alternation is the attributive -e.
- Some common adjectives stay bare attributively — groot, lekker, ou (which also drops its d).
- Compare with -er / -ste, using as for "than"; longer/borrowed words may take meer / mees.
- Memorise the irregulars: ou (no -e), goeie, nuwe, hoë, and the comparative goed → beter → beste.
Now practice Afrikaans
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Start learning Afrikaans→Related Topics
- Afrikaans Adjectives: OverviewA1 — The central fact of Afrikaans adjectives: bare when predicative, often inflected with -e when attributive.
- The Attributive -e: When to Add ItA2 — The single hardest Afrikaans adjective rule, made predictable: when an adjective in front of a noun takes -e, and when it stays bare.
- Comparatives: -er and meerA2 — How Afrikaans builds the comparative — most adjectives add -er (groter, duurder), longer ones take meer, and 'than' is always as, never dan.
- Irregular Attributive Forms: ou, nuwe, anderB1 — The handful of very common adjectives whose attributive form you simply memorise — ou (old), nuwe (new), goeie (good), plus the invariant ander, beter and minder — because their high frequency makes their irregularity matter most.
- Adjective Complements: bly om te, bang datB2 — How predicate adjectives take their complements in Afrikaans — om te for one group, dat for another, a fixed preposition for a third — and why the choice is lexical, not free.
- Adjective Order and StackingB1 — When you pile several adjectives in front of a noun, Afrikaans follows the same opinion-size-age-colour-material sequence as English — and each adjective decides its own -e.