Telling a story in another language is where grammar stops being abstract: you have to chain events in order, mark turning points, and keep the listener oriented in time. Afrikaans gives you a compact toolkit of connectors for this — and one of them, toe ("then"), is so central that learning to use it well is most of the battle. This page covers the storytelling connectors and the one piece of syntax English speakers reliably get wrong: the inversion after toe.
Narrative toe: the workhorse "then"
Toe is the heartbeat of Afrikaans narration. It means "then / and then / so then" and it moves the story forward one step. Where an English storyteller leans on and then... and then..., an Afrikaans speaker leans on toe.
The crucial fact: toe inverts the verb. When toe opens a clause, it takes the first slot, so the finite verb jumps to second position, before the subject. This is not optional — it is the defining feature of narrative toe.
Toe loop ons stad toe.
Then we walked to town. (verb 'loop' before subject 'ons')
Toe sê hy niks nie.
Then he said nothing.
Toe begin dit reën.
Then it started to rain.
Look at the order in each: toe + verb + subject. Toe loop ons, not toe ons loop. The subject and verb swap places. If you write Toe ons loop..., you've accidentally produced a subordinate clause meaning "When we walked..." — a completely different sense (see below).
The toe ... toe chain
You can use toe to open consecutive clauses in a sequence, and you'll often see it paired with en ("and"): en toe ("and then"). This is the natural rhythm of spoken storytelling.
Eers het ons geëet, toe het ons gestap, en daarna het ons gerus.
First we ate, then we walked, and afterwards we rested.
Hy het geklop, en toe maak sy die deur oop.
He knocked, and then she opened the door.
Notice in the first example that toe het ons gestap still inverts (verb het before subject ons), and that the sequence is scaffolded by eers ("first") at the start and daarna ("afterwards") later. Those framing words give the story a clear spine.
Crucial distinction: narrative toe vs temporal toe
Afrikaans has two uses of toe, and they look identical but behave oppositely. Keeping them apart is essential.
| Narrative toe | Temporal toe | |
|---|---|---|
| Meaning | "then / and then" | "when" (past) |
| Role | main-clause connector | subordinating conjunction |
| Word order | verb second — inverts: toe loop ons | verb last: toe ons geloop het |
| Example | Toe loop ons weg. | ...toe ons weggeloop het |
Toe kom hy by die huis aan.
Then he arrived at the house. (narrative — verb second)
Toe hy by die huis aankom, was almal weg.
When he arrived at the house, everyone was gone. (temporal — verb last)
The difference is in the word order of the clause toe introduces. Narrative toe triggers inversion (verb before subject); temporal toe triggers verb-final order (verb at the end of its clause) and the main verb then comes in the following main clause. The full grammar of temporal toe and its cousins (as, wanneer, terwyl) lives on temporal conjunctions; the inverting behaviour it shares with dus and dan is covered on inverting conjunctions.
Building the rest of the timeline
Beyond toe, a handful of adverbs give your narrative shape — marking what came afterwards, what was happening simultaneously, and how it all ended.
| Connector | Meaning | Use |
|---|---|---|
| daarna | afterwards, after that | next event in sequence |
| later | later | a vaguer "some time after" |
| intussen | meanwhile, in the meantime | simultaneous side-event |
| skielik | suddenly | an abrupt turn |
| uiteindelik | finally, in the end | the resolution |
| op die ou end | in the end, eventually (colloquial) | the resolution, chattier |
All of these are adverbs, so when they open a clause they also invert the verb — just like toe.
Daarna het ons koffie gaan drink.
Afterwards we went for coffee.
Intussen het die kinders al klaar geëet.
Meanwhile the children had already finished eating.
Skielik spring die hond op en blaf.
Suddenly the dog jumps up and barks.
Uiteindelik het hy gekom, twee ure laat.
Finally he came, two hours late.
Op die ou end het almal lekker gelag.
In the end everyone had a good laugh.
Use intussen when two things happen at once and you want to cut away to the second; use skielik for a jolt that changes the story's direction; use uiteindelik or the warmer op die ou end to land the ending. For a worked example of all this in a real story, see the short narrative text.
Common mistakes
❌ Toe ons loop stad toe. (meaning to say 'then we walked')
Incorrect — no inversion; this reads as 'When we walked to town...' and leaves the sentence unfinished.
✅ Toe loop ons stad toe.
Then we walked to town.
❌ En toe ons het gestap. (subject before verb after en toe)
Incorrect — after toe the verb must come before the subject.
✅ En toe het ons gestap.
And then we walked.
❌ Daarna ons het koffie gedrink.
Incorrect — a fronted adverb forces verb-subject inversion.
✅ Daarna het ons koffie gedrink.
Afterwards we drank coffee.
❌ Hy het uiteindelik gekom, toe almal was weg. (mixing the two toes)
Incorrect — temporal 'when' clause needs verb-final order: toe almal weg was.
✅ Hy het uiteindelik gekom, toe almal al weg was.
He finally came, when everyone was already gone.
❌ Dan loop ons stad toe. (using dan for past-narrative 'then')
Marked — dan is the 'then' of conditions and the future/present; past storytelling uses toe.
✅ Toe loop ons stad toe.
Then we walked to town.
Key takeaways
- Narrative toe ("then") is the central storytelling connector, and it inverts the verb: Toe loop ons, verb before subject — never Toe ons loop.
- Don't confuse it with temporal toe ("when"), which puts the verb at the end of its clause: toe ons geloop het. See temporal conjunctions.
- Scaffold a story with eers → toe/daarna → uiteindelik, and cut away with intussen, jolt it with skielik.
- Every one of these fronted adverbs (daarna, intussen, skielik, uiteindelik) inverts the verb the same way toe does.
- For past-tense storytelling use toe, not dan — dan belongs to the present, future and conditional "then". See the wider discourse markers overview.
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Start learning Afrikaans→Related Topics
- Temporal Conjunctions: toe, as, wanneer, terwyl, nadat, voordatB1 — The subordinators that locate one event in time relative to another — toe, as, wanneer, terwyl, nadat, voordat, sodra — all sending the verb to the clause end.
- 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.
- Short Narrative (Original, B2)B2 — An original short narrative annotated to show how Afrikaans storytelling mixes the perfect for the storyline with the historic present for vividness, links clauses with toe and daarna, and stretches the verb bracket across longer sentences.
- Modal Particles and Discourse Markers: OverviewB1 — Little words like mos, tog, sommer and darem carry the conversational glue of Afrikaans — they add speaker attitude without changing the literal meaning.
- Adverbs of Time: nou, dan, gister, môre, altydA1 — The everyday words that locate an action in time — nou, dan, gister, vandag, môre, altyd, dikwels, soms, nooit — where they sit in the sentence, and the famous two-way ambiguity of netnou.