English uses one verb, know, for two completely different ideas: knowing a fact ("I know the answer") and being acquainted with someone or something ("I know your sister"). Afrikaans, like German and French, refuses to merge these. It uses weet for facts and ken for acquaintance, and choosing the wrong one produces a sentence that is not just slightly off but genuinely strange to a native ear. The good news is that the dividing line is sharp and you can learn it in a single sitting.
The core rule in one sentence
Use weet when what follows is information — a fact, an answer, a that-clause, or a wh-clause. Use ken when what follows is a person, a place, or a thing you are familiar with.
A quick way to feel the split: weet answers do you know THAT...? / do you know WHAT/WHERE/WHO...?, while ken answers are you acquainted with this person/place/thing?
| Verb | Means | Followed by | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| weet | to know a fact / piece of information | a fact, dat-clause, wh-clause, or nothing | Ek weet die antwoord. |
| ken | to be acquainted / familiar with | a person, place, or thing (a direct object) | Ek ken die man. |
weet: knowing facts and information
Weet is about content — something that can be true or false, something you could write down as a statement. It is the verb for answers, facts, news, and anything introduced by dat ("that") or by a question word.
Ek weet die antwoord — dis veertig.
I know the answer — it's forty.
Weet jy waar die naaste apteek is?
Do you know where the nearest pharmacy is?
Ek weet dat hy vanaand kom, maar ek weet nie hoe laat nie.
I know that he's coming tonight, but I don't know what time.
Notice the two most common shapes: weet + dat-clause (ek weet dat hy kom) and weet + wh-clause (weet jy waar...?, ek weet nie hoe laat nie). Both of these are pure information, so both demand weet. You will also constantly hear the bare negative ek weet nie ("I don't know") — the single most useful phrase in this whole topic.
ken: being acquainted with people, places, and things
Ken is about familiarity — having met a person, having been to a place, recognising a thing. Its object is almost always a noun (a person, a town, a song, a road), never a clause. You cannot ken a fact, and you cannot weet a person.
Ek ken die man — hy werk by die bank.
I know the man — he works at the bank.
Ken jy hom?
Do you know him?
Sy ken die pad huis toe in die donker.
She knows the way home in the dark.
Ek ken daardie liedjie — my ma het dit altyd gesing.
I know that song — my mother always used to sing it.
The road example (sy ken die pad) is the clearest test of all: knowing a route is familiarity, not a fact you state, so it is ken. Likewise ken jy hom? — you are asking about acquaintance with a person, so weet is impossible here.
The minimal pair that shows the whole system
Put the two verbs side by side on near-identical sentences and the split is unmistakable.
Ek weet die antwoord.
I know the answer. (a fact → weet)
Ek ken die man.
I know the man. (acquaintance → ken)
Weet jy waar dit is?
Do you know where it is? (information → weet)
Ken jy hom?
Do you know him? (a person → ken)
These four sentences are worth memorising as a block. Once die antwoord pulls weet and die man pulls ken automatically, you have internalised the rule.
In the negative: ek weet nie vs ek ken hom nie
The split survives untouched in the negative, and the negatives are so common that they are worth a section of their own. Ek weet nie ("I don't know") is the standard reply when you lack a fact; ek ken hom nie ("I don't know him") is what you say about an unfamiliar person. Both take the usual closing nie of the negation bracket — so the full forms are ek weet (dit) nie and ek ken hom nie.
Ek weet regtig nie waar sy nou is nie.
I honestly don't know where she is right now.
Ek ken hom nie — ons het nog nooit ontmoet nie.
I don't know him — we've never met.
The choice never wobbles in the negative: a missing fact is always weet nie, an unfamiliar person or place is always ken nie. If you find yourself wanting to say "I don't know him" with weet, that is the English single-verb instinct leaking through — hom is a person, so it can only be ken.
A gift for German and French speakers
If you already speak German or French, you get this distinction for free. Afrikaans weet/ken lines up perfectly with German wissen/kennen and French savoir/connaître:
| Sense | Afrikaans | German | French | English |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| know a fact | weet | wissen | savoir | know |
| be acquainted with | ken | kennen | connaître | know |
The cognates even sound related: weet ↔ wissen, ken ↔ kennen. Speakers of those languages can simply transfer their existing instinct. English speakers cannot — English collapsed the two into one word centuries ago, so you have to rebuild a distinction your native language threw away. That rebuilding is the entire difficulty of this page, and it is worth doing carefully, because the error is glaring to Afrikaans ears.
Edge cases and gray areas
A few patterns sit on the boundary and are worth a moment.
Knowing a language or a skill uses ken — you are acquainted with the language as a "thing": Ek ken Afrikaans ("I know Afrikaans"). To say you know how to do something, Afrikaans usually switches to kan (can): Ek kan swem ("I can swim"), not weet or ken.
Sy ken drie tale: Afrikaans, Engels en Zoeloe.
She knows three languages: Afrikaans, English and Zulu.
"To get to know / become acquainted" uses leer ken — literally "learn to know": Ek wil hom beter leer ken ("I want to get to know him better"). This is the standard way to express making someone's acquaintance.
Ons het mekaar op universiteit leer ken.
We got to know each other at university.
Common mistakes
❌ Ek ken die antwoord.
Incorrect — an answer is a fact, so it needs weet, not ken.
✅ Ek weet die antwoord.
I know the answer.
❌ Weet jy hom?
Incorrect — a person takes ken; weet cannot take a person as its object.
✅ Ken jy hom?
Do you know him?
❌ Ek ken dat hy kom.
Incorrect — a dat-clause is information, so it must be weet, not ken.
✅ Ek weet dat hy kom.
I know that he's coming.
❌ Sy weet die pad huis toe.
Incorrect — knowing a route is familiarity, not a stated fact, so it's ken.
✅ Sy ken die pad huis toe.
She knows the way home.
❌ Ek weet Afrikaans.
Incorrect — a language is a 'thing' you're acquainted with, so it takes ken.
✅ Ek ken Afrikaans.
I know Afrikaans.
Key takeaways
- weet = know a fact (an answer, a dat-clause, a wh-clause): Ek weet die antwoord, Weet jy waar dit is?, Ek weet dat hy kom.
- ken = be acquainted with a person, place, or thing: Ek ken die man, Ken jy hom?, Sy ken die pad.
- Test: if you could state the object as a sentence/fact, use weet; if you'd say "I'm familiar with it", use ken.
- Languages and skills take ken (Ek ken Afrikaans); "get to know someone" is leer ken.
- The split matches German wissen/kennen and French savoir/connaître exactly — a free transfer for those speakers, a fresh distinction for English speakers.
Now practice Afrikaans
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Start learning Afrikaans→Related Topics
- weet (to know a fact) — Full FormsA2 — Full forms of weet — present weet, perfect het geweet, future sal weet, and the archaic preterite wis — plus the all-important split with ken: weet is for facts, ken is for people and things you're acquainted with.
- ken (to know/be acquainted) — Full FormsA2 — Full forms of ken — present ken, perfect het geken, future sal ken — plus the ken/weet split (acquaintance vs facts), the colloquial ken vir, and leer ken (to get to know).
- Choosing Between Confusable Forms: OverviewB1 — A guide to the Afrikaans 'which one?' problems — maak vs doen, neem vs vat, na vs toe, jy vs u and more — and why most of them hinge on register or word order rather than meaning.