Numbers stop being abstract the moment money and measurements enter — at the shop, on a price tag, in a recipe. Three things here will catch an English speaker off guard: Afrikaans writes decimals with a comma, not a point; it separates thousands with a space, not a comma; and after a number, the currency and measure nouns often stay singular where English pluralises. Add the lovely hedging phrase 'n stuk of ("about, roughly") and you can talk prices and quantities like a local.
Money: rand en sent
South African currency is the rand (symbol R) and the sent (cent, 100 to the rand). The pattern is simply the number plus the unit, and crucially the unit stays singular after a number when you state a price:
Die koffie kos vyftig rand.
The coffee costs fifty rand.
Dit is net twee rand vir 'n appel.
It's only two rand for an apple.
Ek het net vyf sent kleingeld.
I've only got five cents in change.
Notice vyftig rand, not vyftig rande — in a price the unit doesn't pluralise. This mirrors English "fifty rand" (we don't say "fifty rands" either), but it extends further than English does, so it's worth fixing as a habit.
Reading prices: the decimal comma
This is the big one. Afrikaans (like most of continental Europe and unlike English) uses a comma as the decimal separator. So R5,50 is "five rand fifty," and the comma is read as the boundary between rand and cents.
| Written | Said | English |
|---|---|---|
| R5,50 | vyf rand vyftig | five rand fifty (R5.50) |
| R12,99 | twaalf rand nege-en-negentig | twelve rand ninety-nine |
| R250,00 | tweehonderd-en-vyftig rand | two hundred and fifty rand |
Die brood kos R12,99.
The bread costs R12.99.
Hoeveel kos dit? — Dit is R250,00.
How much is it? — It's R250.00.
When you say a price aloud, the cents are usually spoken as a bare number after the rand: vyf rand vyftig (literally "five rand fifty"), not vyf rand en vyftig sent — though the fuller form with sent is also fine for clarity.
Big numbers: a space for thousands
Where English writes a comma between thousands (1,000), Afrikaans uses a space: 1 000. A four-digit number may be written tight (1000) or spaced (1 000), but from five digits up the space is standard: 25 000, 1 250 000.
Die kar het R250 000 gekos.
The car cost R250,000.
Daar was sowat 10 000 mense by die fees.
There were about 10,000 people at the festival.
Asking and stating the cost
The everyday question is Hoeveel kos dit? (How much does it cost?), using the verb kos (to cost). The answer uses kos or the copula is.
Hoeveel kos die kaartjies?
How much do the tickets cost?
Wat is die prys?
What's the price?
Dit kos te veel — ek koop dit nie.
It costs too much — I'm not buying it.
Quantities and measure nouns
To measure out a quantity, Afrikaans puts the measure noun between the number and the substance, with no word for "of": twee kilo rys ("two kilos [of] rice"), 'n liter melk ("a litre [of] milk"). Common measure nouns:
| Afrikaans | English | Example |
|---|---|---|
| kilo / kilogram | kilo | twee kilo aartappels |
| gram | gram | vyfhonderd gram kaas |
| liter | litre | 'n liter melk |
| dosyn | dozen | 'n dosyn eiers |
| pakkie | packet | 'n pakkie tee |
Gee my asseblief twee kilo aartappels.
Give me two kilos of potatoes, please.
Ons het 'n dosyn eiers nodig.
We need a dozen eggs.
Crucially, there is no van ("of") between the measure and the substance — twee kilo rys, never twee kilo van rys. This is the opposite of English, which insists on "of." The grammar of measure phrases is developed further on mass and count nouns.
Hedging amounts: sowat, omtrent, 'n stuk of
When you don't want to commit to an exact figure, Afrikaans has neat hedges. sowat and omtrent mean "about / approximately" and go before the number. The idiomatic gem is 'n stuk of + number, literally "a piece of," meaning "about / roughly / some N" — a hedging construction English has no tidy equivalent for.
Sowat honderd mense het opgedaag.
About a hundred people showed up.
Dit sal omtrent 'n uur neem.
It'll take roughly an hour.
Gee my 'n stuk of drie, dankie.
Give me about three, thanks.
Daar was 'n stuk of tien karre in die ry.
There were about ten cars in the queue.
- a number = "about / roughly N." It's warmer and more colloquial than sowat, perfect for casual estimates: 'n stuk of vyf ("about five"). There's no single English word for it — closest is "some five-ish."
Reading a decimal as a number
Outside of money, a decimal like 2,5 is read twee komma vyf ("two comma five") — you literally say the word komma. This is the everyday spoken form for measurements and statistics.
Die baba weeg drie komma vyf kilogram.
The baby weighs three point five kilos.
Die wenkans is twee komma vyf persent.
The chance of winning is two point five percent.
Common mistakes
❌ Die koffie kos R5.50.
Incorrect — Afrikaans uses a decimal comma: R5,50.
✅ Die koffie kos R5,50.
The coffee costs R5.50.
❌ Die kar het R250,000 gekos. (meaning two hundred fifty thousand)
Incorrect — a comma is the decimal point; thousands use a space: R250 000.
✅ Die kar het R250 000 gekos.
The car cost R250,000.
❌ Dit kos vyftig rande.
Incorrect — the currency stays singular after a number: vyftig rand.
✅ Dit kos vyftig rand.
It costs fifty rand.
❌ Gee my twee kilo van aartappels.
Incorrect — no van between a measure and the substance.
✅ Gee my twee kilo aartappels.
Give me two kilos of potatoes.
❌ Die baba weeg drie punt vyf kilogram.
Incorrect — you say the decimal as komma, not punt: drie komma vyf.
✅ Die baba weeg drie komma vyf kilogram.
The baby weighs three point five kilos.
Key takeaways
- Money is rand en sent, symbol R; after a number the unit stays singular (vyf rand).
- The decimal separator is a comma (R5,50 = five rand fifty); thousands take a space (1 000, R250 000) — the mirror image of English.
- Ask the price with Hoeveel kos dit?; measure phrases use no van: twee kilo rys.
- Spoken decimals use komma: twee komma vyf.
- Hedge amounts with sowat / omtrent ("about") and the idiomatic 'n stuk of
- number ("roughly N").
- For the grammar of measures see mass and count nouns; for figure formatting see writing numbers and punctuation.
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Start learning Afrikaans→Related Topics
- Mass and Count Nouns; Measure PhrasesB1 — Why mass nouns like water and geld resist plurals, how Afrikaans measures them with phrases like twee glase wyn, and the key difference from English: no 'of'.
- Punctuation and QuotationB1 — Afrikaans punctuation where it differs from English — the decimal comma, quotation marks, the colon and dash, and commas around subordinate clauses.
- Writing Numbers: Figures, Words and FormattingB1 — The conventions for writing Afrikaans numbers — when to spell out versus use figures, the decimal comma, the space thousands separator, hyphenated compound numbers and written ordinals.
- Cardinal NumbersA1 — Afrikaans cardinal numbers 0 to a million, built on one mechanical pattern: for 21 to 99 the unit comes before the ten, joined by en — een-en-twintig (21).
- Fractions, Decimals and PercentagesB1 — How Afrikaans builds fractions from ordinals ('n derde, twee derdes), reads decimals with a comma (3,5 = drie komma vyf) and expresses percentages (vyftig persent).