Sometimes you do not want a whole although-clause. You want to state a fact, accept it, and then push straight past it in the next breath: "It was expensive. I bought it anyway." Afrikaans has a tidy kit of connectors for exactly this rhetorical move — granting a point and overriding it — without building a subordinate clause at all. The main three are nogtans/nietemin ("nevertheless"), tog ("after all, yet, anyway"), and darem ("at least, still"). They differ in force and in word order, and getting the inversion right after nogtans is the single technical thing English speakers stumble on. For the full subordinate-clause version with hoewel and al, see concessive clauses.
nogtans / nietemin — 'nevertheless'
Nogtans (and its slightly more formal synonym nietemin) means "nevertheless, nonetheless." It is the strongest, most explicit of the concessive connectors: it openly grants the previous point and then states the contrary. Crucially, when it stands at the front of its clause it fills first position, so the verb must invert to second position — verb before subject.
Dit het gereën; nogtans het ons gaan stap.
It rained; nevertheless we went for a walk.
Dit was duur; nogtans het ek dit gekoop.
It was expensive; nevertheless I bought it.
Hy is jonk; nietemin doen hy die werk van twee mense.
He's young; nevertheless he does the work of two people.
Look closely at the order after nogtans: nogtans het ons, nogtans het ek, nietemin doen hy — the finite verb sits immediately after the connector, and the subject comes after the verb. This is the ordinary fronting-inversion rule of Afrikaans (see inverting conjunctions): anything in first position pushes the verb to second. Forgetting it — writing nogtans ek het — is the classic English-speaker error, because English never inverts after "nevertheless."
You can also tuck nogtans into the middle of the clause, where no inversion is involved — handy when you want a lighter touch:
Ek het dit nogtans gekoop.
I bought it nevertheless.
tog — the defied expectation
Tog is subtler. It marks that something happened contrary to what you would expect — "after all," "yet," "anyway," "still." Where nogtans announces the contrast loudly, tog slips in mid-clause and quietly signals "despite everything, this turned out to be the case." It is one of the most characteristic small words in spoken Afrikaans.
Hy het tog gekom.
He came after all.
Sy was kwaad, maar sy het tog gehelp.
She was angry, but she helped anyway.
Dit is tog die moeite werd.
It's worth it after all.
The force of tog is "you (or I) expected otherwise, and yet here we are." Hy het gekom is flat reporting; Hy het *tog gekom says "we thought he wouldn't, but he did." That defied-expectation flavour is why a plain English translation often loses it — "after all" only half captures the small note of surprise. *Tog has a wide pragmatic range beyond concession (insistence, gentle reproach), explored on the particles darem and tog; here we keep to its concessive job.
Jy het gesê dit gaan misluk, maar dit het tog gewerk.
You said it would fail, but it worked anyway.
darem — conceding to the bright side
Darem concedes too, but softens toward reassurance: "at least," "still," "thank goodness it's not worse." Where tog notes a defied expectation neutrally, darem grants that things could be bad and then points to the saving grace. It is warm, consoling, very common in everyday speech.
Hy is moeg, maar hy werk darem.
He's tired, but at least he's working.
Dit was 'n lang dag; darem was die weer mooi.
It was a long day; at least the weather was nice.
Ons het verloor, maar ons het darem ons bes gedoen.
We lost, but at least we did our best.
So the three connectors map onto three attitudes toward the same concession:
| Connector | Move | Tone |
|---|---|---|
| nogtans / nietemin | grant X, then assert the opposite | explicit, somewhat formal |
| tog | X happened contrary to expectation | quiet surprise, defied expectation |
| darem | X is true, but here's the upside | warm, reassuring, 'at least' |
weliswaar ... maar — granting then countering
A more deliberate, written-register way to concede is the weliswaar ... maar frame: "admittedly ... but." You concede a point with weliswaar ("it is true that / admittedly") and then override it with maar. It is the explicit "I'll grant you X, but Y" move, common in argument and opinion writing.
Dit is weliswaar duur, maar dit hou jare lank.
It's admittedly expensive, but it lasts for years.
Sy is weliswaar jonk, maar sy is baie bekwaam.
She's young, admittedly, but she's very capable.
This frame is the discourse equivalent of a hoewel-clause: you signal up front ("I concede this") that a counter is coming. It reads as measured and fair-minded, which is why it shows up in editorials and reasoned argument.
ten spyte daarvan — 'despite that'
When you want to refer back to the whole previous point and override it, ten spyte daarvan ("despite that, in spite of it") does the job. The daarvan ("of that") points back at what was just said.
Almal het hom gewaarsku. Ten spyte daarvan het hy aangehou.
Everyone warned him. Despite that, he carried on.
Die plan was riskant. Ten spyte daarvan het dit geslaag.
The plan was risky. Despite that, it succeeded.
Note the inversion again: fronting ten spyte daarvan puts the verb second — ten spyte daarvan *het hy. The prepositional *ten spyte van + a noun is covered on the concessive clauses page; here the daarvan version lets you concede a whole previous statement in one stroke.
Common mistakes
❌ Dit was duur; nogtans ek het dit gekoop.
Incorrect — fronted nogtans forces inversion: the verb comes second, before the subject.
✅ Dit was duur; nogtans het ek dit gekoop.
It was expensive; nevertheless I bought it.
❌ Hy is moeg, maar hy werk tog. (meaning: 'at least he's working')
Wrong connector for the consoling 'at least' — that's darem, not tog.
✅ Hy is moeg, maar hy werk darem.
He's tired, but at least he's working.
❌ Nogtans, het ons gegaan.
Incorrect — no comma splitting nogtans from the verb; it reads nogtans het ons gegaan.
✅ Nogtans het ons gegaan.
Nevertheless we went.
❌ Hy het gekom darem. (meaning: 'he came after all')
Wrong particle for a defied expectation — 'after all' is tog: Hy het tog gekom.
✅ Hy het tog gekom.
He came after all.
Key takeaways
- These connectors grant a point and override it without a full hoewel-clause — a compact rhetorical move.
- nogtans / nietemin = "nevertheless": explicit, and when fronted it inverts the verb to second position (nogtans het ek ...).
- tog = "after all, anyway": marks a defied expectation, usually mid-clause (Hy het tog gekom).
- darem = "at least, still": concedes toward the bright side, warm and consoling.
- weliswaar ... maar explicitly concedes then counters; ten spyte daarvan overrides the whole previous point.
- For the subordinate-clause versions see concessive clauses; for the wider pragmatics of these particles see darem and tog and the discourse connectors.
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- Concessive Clauses: hoewel, al, ten spyte vanB2 — Granting a point and pushing past it — hoewel/alhoewel ('although') with verb-final order, the compact al + inversion 'even if' (Al reën dit, gaan ons), and ten spyte van ('in spite of').
- The Particles darem and togB1 — Two high-frequency conversational particles — darem (reassurance, 'after all, at least') and tog (gentle insistence and appeal, 'do come!', 'surely') — and how to tell them apart.
- Inverting Conjunctions: dus, daarom, toe, danB1 — The conjunctive adverbs — dus, daarom, derhalwe, gevolglik, toe, dan, anders, nietemin, tog — that sit in first position and force the verb before the subject.
- Discourse Connectors: in elk geval, trouens, boonopB2 — Sentence-level connectors like boonop, trouens and nietemin take first position and trigger V2 inversion, structuring an argument across sentences.