Reporting Speech in Conversation: glo, soos, sê | Afrikaans Grammar

When Afrikaans speakers retell who said what, conversation rarely sounds like the neat Sy het gesê dat... of a grammar exercise. Real talk reaches for a handful of compact devices: the particle glo to flag hearsay ("apparently"), the quotatives soos and van ("like") to introduce a dramatised quote, and plain sê to frame direct speech that you simply act out. These are the tools that make reported speech sound native rather than translated. The formal machinery of dat-clauses and tense backshift lives on reported speech; this page is about the conversational layer English speakers most often over-formalise.

glo: the hearsay particle "apparently"

The single most useful — and most overlooked — reporting device is glo. As a main verb, glo means "to believe" (Ek glo jou, "I believe you"). But dropped into a clause as a particle, glo means "apparently, supposedly, so they say" — it flags that the information is second-hand and that you are not vouching for it. This is everyday Afrikaans; it is not slang, and it appears in news writing too.

Hy het glo sy werk verloor.

He's apparently lost his job.

Sy is glo getroud met 'n dokter.

She's married to a doctor, apparently.

Dit gaan glo môre reën.

It's supposedly going to rain tomorrow.

Placement is the key. Glo sits inside the clause, typically right after the finite verb (or after the auxiliary in a perfect tense: het glo), not at the front and not as a separate verb taking a dat-clause. This is the trap for English speakers: there is no "I heard that" or "they say that" wrapper. You take the bare statement and insert glo. Compare the believe-verb reading, which is structurally different:

Ek glo dat hy sy werk verloor het.

I believe that he's lost his job. (I'm asserting my belief)

Hy het glo sy werk verloor.

He's apparently lost his job. (hearsay — I'm not vouching for it)

The first commits the speaker to the claim; the second explicitly distances the speaker from it. That distancing function — "I'm passing this on, not endorsing it" — is exactly what English does with "apparently" or "supposedly", and it is high-frequency in conversation.

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Don't translate "apparently / they say that" with a clause. Take the plain sentence and slot glo in after the finite verb: Hy is glo siek ("He's apparently sick"). One small particle replaces a whole English wrapper.

For glo alongside other evidential and certainty markers like seker and mos, see seker, glo and evidentials.

sê: framing direct quotation

The most concrete way to report speech is simply to quote it, framed with sê ("say"). In writing, the quote goes in aanhalingstekens (quotation marks); in speech, the speaker just performs the line. Narration in Afrikaans uses this constantly, often with the storytelling connector en toe ("and then").

Sy sê: 'Ek kom nooit weer terug nie.'

She says, 'I'm never coming back.'

En toe sê ek vir hom: 'Genoeg is genoeg.'

And then I said to him, 'Enough is enough.'

Hy vra: 'Hoe laat is dit?'

He asks, 'What time is it?'

Two things to note. First, sê takes the addressee with vir: ek sê vir hom ("I say to him"), not a bare dative. Second, in vivid narration Afrikaans freely uses the present tense sê even for past events — the "historic present" — which makes the retelling more immediate, just as casual English slips into "so she says…". The trailing nie ... nie in the first quote is ordinary clause negation inside the quoted sentence.

Beyond sê, a small set of reporting verbs covers most needs:

Verb	English	Use
sê	say	neutral statement
vra	ask	questions
antwoord	answer / reply	responses
vertel	tell	recounting a story
beweer	claim / allege	contested assertions
roep	call out / shout	raised voice

Sy antwoord dat sy nie kan kom nie.

She replies that she can't come.

Hy beweer dat hy niks geweet het nie.

He claims he knew nothing.

Beweer is worth flagging: like glo, it signals that the speaker does not vouch for the claim, but it does so more formally and is common in journalism (die verdagte beweer..., "the suspect claims...").

soos and van: the colloquial quotative "like"

Just as English youth speech uses "be like" to introduce a dramatised quote — "and she was like, 'no way'" — colloquial Afrikaans uses soos ("like") and, regionally, van. These introduce a performed quote or an attitude rather than reporting exact words. They belong firmly to informal, often younger, speech.

En sy was soos: 'Nee, dis nie waar nie!'

And she was like, 'No, that's not true!'

Ek was van: 'Wat de hel?'

I was like, 'What the hell?'

Hy's soos 'Ek weet nie', maar hy weet baie goed.

He's like 'I don't know', but he knows full well.

This quotative soos / van is conversational and would be out of place in formal writing — you would not put it in an essay or a news report. But for rendering dialogue with attitude, it is exactly how younger speakers talk, and recognising it is essential for understanding casual speech, films and social media. Note hy's is the everyday contraction of hy is.

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Match the register. glo and sê are neutral and work everywhere; the quotative soos / van ("was like") is informal, youthful speech only — great for dialogue, wrong for an essay or report.

Direct versus reported framing

You have two framings for the same event. Direct quotation reproduces the words inside aanhalingstekens after sê; reported speech embeds the content in a dat-clause and adjusts pronouns. Both are common in conversation; the colloquial devices above attach mostly to the direct style.

Sy sê: 'Ek is moeg.'

She says, 'I'm tired.' (direct)

Sy sê dat sy moeg is.

She says that she's tired. (reported)

In the reported version, the pronoun shifts (ek → sy) and the finite verb is moves to the clause-final position demanded by the subordinating dat. That verb-final order and the full backshift rules are the subject of reported speech; here just notice that conversation mixes both framings freely, and that dat itself is frequently dropped in fast speech (Sy sê sy is moeg).

Common mistakes

❌ Dit is glo dat hy siek is.

Incorrect — glo is not a clause-introducer; insert it into the bare statement: Hy is glo siek.

✅ Hy is glo siek.

He's apparently sick.

❌ Ek het gehoor dat dit gaan reën — for everyday 'apparently it'll rain'.

Over-formalised for casual hearsay; the idiomatic device is glo: Dit gaan glo reën.

✅ Dit gaan glo reën.

It's apparently going to rain.

❌ Sy sê my dat sy nie kan kom nie.

Incorrect — sê takes the addressee with vir: sy sê vir my.

✅ Sy sê vir my dat sy nie kan kom nie.

She tells me she can't come.

❌ Sy sê dat sy is moeg.

Incorrect — after dat the finite verb goes to the end: dat sy moeg is.

✅ Sy sê dat sy moeg is.

She says that she's tired.

❌ In die verslag was die getuie soos: 'Ek het niks gesien nie.'

✅ In die verslag het die getuie beweer dat hy niks gesien het nie.

In the report the witness claimed he saw nothing.

Key takeaways

glo as a particle means "apparently, supposedly" — it flags hearsay and distances the speaker; insert it after the finite verb, not as a clause wrapper (Hy is glo siek).
This particle glo is distinct from the verb glo "to believe" (Ek glo dat...), which commits the speaker to the claim.
sê frames direct quotation in aanhalingstekens; it takes the addressee with vir (sê vir my), and narration freely uses the historic present.
Core reporting verbs: sê, vra, antwoord, vertel, beweer, roep — with beweer signalling a contested claim.
The quotatives soos / van ("was like") render dramatised quotes in informal speech only; keep them out of formal writing, and see reported speech for the formal dat-clause machinery.

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