Expressing Opinions and Agreement

Once you can hold a real conversation, you need to say what you think — and just as importantly, to agree, disagree, and hedge without sounding blunt. Afrikaans has a tidy set of fixed frames for this, and the key skill for an English speaker is learning which ones soften a claim and which state it flatly. The frame worth its weight in gold is dit lyk vir my ("it seems to me"), the idiomatic hedge that makes you sound thoughtful rather than dogmatic.

Stating an opinion: ek dink, glo, voel

The basic opinion frames are the verbs dink (think), glo (believe), and voel (feel), each followed by an embedded clause. The catch English speakers must remember: when you say ek dink dat... with the conjunction dat ("that"), the verb in the embedded clause goes to the end.

Notice that with these verbs you usually drop the dat: Ek dink hy is reg, not Ek dink dat hy is reg. Dropping dat is natural and keeps ordinary main-clause word order, with the verb in second position (hy *is reg). The moment you put *dat back in, the embedded clause becomes subordinate and the finite verb slides to the end: Ek dink dat hy reg is — verb-final, not Ek dink dat hy is reg. Most speakers simply drop dat and keep the straightforward order. For the mechanics of these embedded clauses, see reported speech.

na my mening and wat my betref: framing the stance

For a slightly more weighted or formal opinion, front the sentence with na my mening ("in my opinion") or wat my betref ("as far as I'm concerned"). Because these open the clause, they trigger verb-subject inversion — the verb comes before the subject.

The idiomatic hedge: dit lyk vir my

Here is the frame that makes you sound native. Dit lyk vir my literally means "it looks to me / it seems to me", and it's the everyday way to offer an opinion softly, presenting it as an impression rather than a verdict. It's gentler than ek dink because it doesn't plant a firm claim — it floats a perception.

Note two things. First, the recipient of the impression is marked with vir ("to me" = vir my), the same all-purpose vir you meet in datives. Second, to introduce the content you can use of ("as if / like"): dit lyk vir my of.... This of-frame is extremely common and signals that what follows is a guess, not a fact.

A close cousin is dit klink vir my ("it sounds to me") for things you hear or are told, and dit voel vir my ("it feels to me") for hunches. They work identically.

Agreeing: ek stem saam

To agree, the standard verb is saamstem (literally "agree-together"), a separable verb: ek stem saam. The crucial preposition point: you agree with someone using met, not the English instinct to leave it out — ek stem saam met jou.

Other quick agreement formulas: presies ("exactly"), dis waar ("that's true"), beslis ("definitely"), and the simple jy is reg ("you're right"). For the broader interactional dance of agreeing and backing down, see agreeing and disagreeing.

Disagreeing — politely

Bald disagreement is dispreferred in Afrikaans as in English; you soften it. The direct form is ek stem nie saam nie ("I don't agree", with the double negative) or ek verskil ("I differ"). But the gentler moves are more useful day to day.

Note the negation pattern: the first nie sits after the verb/cluster and the second nie closes the clause — ek stem nie saam nie, ek dink nie so nie. Forgetting the closing nie is the commonest learner error here. The softest disagreement of all is simply expressing uncertainty (ek is nie so seker nie), which lets you decline to agree without contradicting anyone.

Declining to commit: dit hang af

When you genuinely don't want to take a side, the idiom is dit hang af ("it depends"), often expanded with van ("on"): dit hang af van....

For the full toolkit of stance and hedging — distancing yourself from a claim, marking uncertainty, conceding ground — see stance and hedging.

Common mistakes

Key takeaways

• State opinions with ek dink / glo / voel (usually dropping dat); front a weighted stance with na my mening or wat my betref, which trigger verb inversion.
• The idiomatic hedge is dit lyk vir my ("it seems to me") — softer than ek dink, presenting a perception rather than a verdict; pair it with of for guesses. See stance and hedging.
• Agree with ek stem saam — and always say met for "with someone": ek stem saam met jou.
• Disagree gently: ek dink nie so nie, ek is nie so seker nie — and never drop the closing nie.
• Sit on the fence with dit hang af (van). For liking and preferring rather than opining, see likes and dislikes.