You cannot make plans, tell a story, or answer "when?" without a stock of time expressions. Afrikaans bundles most of them into tidy set phrases — vanoggend (this morning), oormôre (the day after tomorrow), verlede week (last week) — that you learn as whole units rather than building from scratch. The fun part, and the part that genuinely confuses English speakers, is a little cluster of "soon" words: nou, nou-nou, and netnou form a three-step scale of immediacy that English has no clean way to translate. Master that scale and a handful of set phrases, and you can locate any event in time.
This page treats these as vocabulary. For how time prepositions work (om, oor, in, teen), see time prepositions; for time adverbs in the wider sentence, see time adverbs.
The parts of the day: van- compounds
Afrikaans builds "this morning / afternoon / evening / night" by gluing van- ("this") onto the part of the day. They are single words.
| Afrikaans | English |
|---|---|
| vanoggend | this morning |
| vanmiddag | this afternoon |
| vanaand | this evening / tonight |
| vannag | tonight (the night hours) / last night |
| vandag | today |
Ek het vanoggend laat opgestaan.
I got up late this morning.
Kom jy vanaand saam eet?
Are you coming to eat with us tonight?
A small trap: vannag can mean either tonight (the night still to come) or last night (the one just past), depending on tense and context — much like English "tonight" can stretch in casual speech. The verb tense usually settles it: Ek gaan vannag werk (future, "tonight") versus Ek het vannag sleg geslaap (past, "last night").
Days around today: gister, môre and friends
| Afrikaans | English |
|---|---|
| eergister | the day before yesterday |
| gister | yesterday |
| vandag | today |
| môre | tomorrow |
| oormôre | the day after tomorrow |
Ons het hom eergister laas gesien.
We last saw him the day before yesterday.
Oormôre is dit my ma se verjaarsdag.
The day after tomorrow is my mom's birthday.
Note that vanoggend covers "this morning", but a generic "in the morning" greeting is (goeie) môre — same word as "tomorrow", context tells them apart. To wish someone good morning you say Goeiemôre.
Weeks, months, years: verlede and volgende
For larger spans, Afrikaans frames "last" and "next" with two adjectives that sit before the time noun:
- verlede = last (the one just past)
- volgende = next (the one coming up)
| Afrikaans | English |
|---|---|
| verlede week | last week |
| verlede maand | last month |
| verlede jaar | last year |
| volgende week | next week |
| volgende maand | next month |
| volgende jaar | next year |
Ek het verlede week begin werk.
I started work last week.
Volgende maand trek ons na 'n nuwe huis toe.
Next month we're moving to a new house.
Keep these distinct from die week ("this week") — for the current span you just use die: Ek is die week baie besig ("I'm very busy this week"). To say "in a week('s time)", Afrikaans uses oor: oor 'n week.
Sien jou oor 'n week!
See you in a week!
The immediacy scale: nou, nou-nou, netnou
Here is the genuinely tricky bit, and the reason this page exists. English has basically one word — "soon" — and leans on "in a minute / just now / right away" to fill the gaps. Afrikaans has a precise little three-step scale built from one root, nou ("now"):
| Word | Meaning | When |
|---|---|---|
| nou | now | this very moment |
| nou-nou | in a moment, very soon | shortly, but not this instant |
| netnou | in a little while / a little while ago | a bit further off — and crucially, can point to the past too |
So nou is "right now", nou-nou is "in a moment" (close, imminent), and netnou is "in a little while" — a touch further away, and with a famous quirk: netnou can point backwards as well as forwards. Depending on tense, netnou means either "a little while from now" or "a little while ago".
Ek kom nou-nou — net gou hierdie ding klaarmaak.
I'm coming in a moment — just quickly finishing this thing.
Ek het netnou met haar gepraat.
I spoke to her a little while ago.
Ek bel jou netnou terug.
I'll call you back in a little while.
Compare those last two: Ek het netnou... (past tense, "a little while ago") versus Ek bel jou netnou... (present/future, "in a little while"). The same word; the tense of the verb tells you which direction in time it points.
For "right away, immediately" without the wiggle room, use dadelik or onmiddellik:
Ek kom dadelik!
I'm coming right away!
Idiomatic time spans
Afrikaans loves vivid fixed expressions for stretches of time. Learn these as whole units — they don't translate piece by piece.
| Expression | Literally | Means |
|---|---|---|
| in 'n japtrap | in a "snap-step" | in a jiffy, in no time |
| oor 'n rukkie | over a little while | in a little while, shortly |
| dag in dag uit | day in day out | every single day, relentlessly |
| dag en nag | day and night | around the clock, constantly |
| nou en dan | now and then | occasionally |
| gou-gou | quick-quick | in a hurry, very quickly |
Moenie bekommerd wees nie — ek maak dit in 'n japtrap reg.
Don't worry — I'll fix it in a jiffy.
Wag net 'n bietjie, ek is oor 'n rukkie klaar.
Just wait a moment, I'll be done in a little while.
Hy werk dag in dag uit sonder om te kla.
He works day in, day out without complaining.
The phrase gou on its own simply means "quick(ly)" and shows up constantly as a softener — kom gou hier ("come here a sec"), ek maak net gou koffie ("I'll just quickly make coffee"). It is one of the most-used words in spoken Afrikaans.
Common mistakes
❌ more / oormore
Incorrect — both need the circumflex: môre, oormôre. Without it, 'more' is an English word.
✅ Ek sien jou môre, of anders oormôre.
I'll see you tomorrow, or otherwise the day after.
❌ nou nou (two separate words)
Incorrect — 'in a moment' is the hyphenated nou-nou; two loose words just means 'now now'.
✅ Ek kom nou-nou.
I'm coming in a moment.
❌ Ek het netnou met haar praat. (using netnou but present-tense verb for a past event)
Mismatched — for the 'a little while ago' reading the verb must be past: het ... gepraat.
✅ Ek het netnou met haar gepraat.
I spoke to her a little while ago.
❌ Ek kom nou-nou. (expecting it to mean 'this instant')
Misjudged timing — nou-nou means 'shortly', not 'right now'. For 'right away' use dadelik.
✅ Ek kom dadelik!
I'm coming right away!
❌ laste week
Incorrect — 'last week' is verlede week, not a calque of English 'last'.
✅ Ek het verlede week siek geword.
I got sick last week.
Key takeaways
- Parts of the day glue onto van-: vanoggend, vanmiddag, vanaand, vannag. Vannag can mean "tonight" or "last night" — tense decides.
- Days around today: eergister, gister, môre, oormôre — and môre always keeps its circumflex.
- Larger spans use verlede (last) and volgende (next): verlede week, volgende jaar; "in a week" is oor 'n week.
- The immediacy scale nou → nou-nou → netnou has no English equivalent; netnou can even point to the past. None is as instant as the "now" inside it suggests.
- Idiomatic spans like in 'n japtrap, dag in dag uit, and oor 'n rukkie are fixed units — learn them whole. See also time adverbs and fixed phrases.
Now practice Afrikaans
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Start learning Afrikaans→Related Topics
- Time Prepositions: om, op, in, voor, na, tydensA2 — Afrikaans temporal prepositions follow a tidy size ladder — om for the hour, op for days, in for months and longer — plus voor, na, tydens and sedert.
- 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.
- Useful Fixed Phrases and Discourse ChunksA2 — Ready-made conversational chunks — nou-nou, netnou, in elk geval, dit hang af, kom ons sê — to learn whole and deploy without building from scratch.
- Expressions and Idioms: OverviewA2 — A map of Afrikaans fixed expressions — social formulas, everyday idioms, proverbs and exclamations — and why so much of the imagery comes from the farm, the weather and the Dutch heritage.
- reeds and al: 'already'B1 — The two words for 'already' — everyday al and formal reeds — where they sit in the sentence, how al also means 'all', and the contrast with nog ('still').