Prepositions with Pronouns | Afrikaans Grammar

When a pronoun follows a preposition in Afrikaans, two things have to be right: the form of the pronoun (object, not subject — vir my, never vir ek), and, if the pronoun refers to a thing rather than a person, a switch to a special fused form (daarmee, not met dit). English speakers get the first right by instinct and the second wrong almost every time, because English happily says "with it". This page drills the person/thing split and shows how the preposition vir doubles as Afrikaans's main "to/for" marker.

Prepositions take the object pronoun

Just as in English you say "for me" and not "for I", Afrikaans prepositions are followed by the object form of the pronoun. The good news is that for most pronouns the object form is the one you reach for naturally; the only ones to watch are ek → my and hy → hom, where the subject and object forms differ.

Subject	Object (after a preposition)	Example
ek	my	vir my
jy	jou	vir jou
hy	hom	met hom
sy	haar	na haar
ons	ons	by ons
julle	julle	sonder julle
hulle	hulle	met hulle

Wag vir my by die hek.

Wait for me at the gate.

Sy stap altyd saam met hom skool toe.

She always walks to school with him.

Kom bly vanaand by ons.

Come stay with us tonight.

Hulle het sonder hom vertrek.

They left without him.

The pattern is mechanical: preposition, then object pronoun. The only real trap for an English speaker is letting the subject form slip out — vir ek, met hy — which is as wrong in Afrikaans as "for I" is in English, just easier to do when you are thinking fast in a second language.

vir does double duty: the dative-like marker

Here is the insight most courses skip. In English, "give me the book" puts the recipient straight after the verb with no preposition. Afrikaans instead marks the recipient with vir — the same vir that means "for". So vir is not only "for"; it is also Afrikaans's everyday way of saying "to (someone)" — the indirect-object or dative marker.

Gee die boek vir my.

Give me the book.

Sy het 'n brief vir jou geskryf.

She wrote you a letter.

Sê vir hom dat ek nie kan kom nie.

Tell him I can't come.

In Gee die boek vir my, the recipient "me" appears as vir my, literally "to/for me". This trips up English speakers who expect the recipient to come bare after the verb; in Afrikaans it almost always wears a vir. Even verbs like sê ("say/tell") and vra ("ask") route their human object through vir: Sê vir hom ("tell him"), Vra vir haar ("ask her"). For the deeper treatment of this dative-by-preposition pattern, see vir as the dative marker.

💡

vir is two things at once: the preposition "for" and the marker that introduces a person you give, say, or do something to. So "give me the book" is gee die boek vir my, and "tell her" is sê vir haar. When in doubt about how to attach a human recipient to a verb, vir is your default.

The person/thing split: things use a daar-compound

Now the part English speakers genuinely have to retrain. A preposition can take a pronoun referring to a person (met hom — "with him") quite freely. But when the pronoun refers to a thing — English "with it", "about it", "for it" — Afrikaans does not say met dit, oor dit, vir dit. Instead it fuses daar + the preposition into a single word: daarmee, daaroor, daarvoor.

Hier is 'n hamer — slaan die spyker daarmee in.

Here's a hammer — knock the nail in with it.

Die plan is goed; ek stem heeltemal daarmee saam.

The plan is good; I completely agree with it.

Hy het my 'n geskenk gegee en ek is baie bly daaroor.

He gave me a present and I'm very glad about it.

Sy het hard gewerk, en sy verdien 'n beloning daarvoor.

She worked hard, and she deserves a reward for it.

Compare the two halves of the split directly:

Refers to a person	Refers to a thing	English
met hom	daarmee	with him / with it
oor haar	daaroor	about her / about it
vir hulle	daarvoor	for them / for it
na jou	daarna	after/to you / after it

So the choice is governed entirely by whether the referent is animate. met dit is simply not Afrikaans; the fused daarmee takes its place. These daar-compounds are the answering, demonstrative cousins of the waar-compounds you meet in relative and question constructions — same fusion, different first element (daar- points back to a known thing, waar- introduces a clause).

💡

For a person, keep the preposition and add the pronoun: met hom, oor haar, vir hulle. For a thing, fuse: daarmee, daaroor, daarvoor — never met dit. The single question to ask is: person or thing? It decides the whole construction.

Common mistakes

❌ Wag vir ek by die hek.

Incorrect — a preposition takes the object form: vir my, not 'vir ek'.

✅ Wag vir my by die hek.

Wait for me at the gate.

❌ Ek stem heeltemal saam met dit.

Incorrect — for a thing you fuse daar + preposition: daarmee, not 'met dit'.

✅ Ek stem heeltemal daarmee saam.

I completely agree with it.

❌ Sy is baie bly oor dit.

Incorrect — 'about it' (a thing) is daaroor, not 'oor dit'.

✅ Sy is baie bly daaroor.

She's very glad about it.

❌ Gee my die boek.

Incorrect by Afrikaans norms — the human recipient takes vir: gee die boek vir my.

✅ Gee die boek vir my.

Give me the book.

❌ Ek het met hy gepraat.

Incorrect — after a preposition use the object form hom, not the subject hy: met hom.

✅ Ek het met hom gepraat.

I spoke with him.

Key takeaways

A preposition takes the object pronoun: vir my, met hom, by ons, sonder julle — watch ek → my and hy → hom (see subject and object pronouns).
vir is the all-purpose "to/for" marker that also attaches human recipients to verbs: gee die boek vir my, sê vir hom (see vir as the dative marker).
The person/thing split is the big one: people take preposition + pronoun (met hom); things take a fused daar-compound (daarmee, daaroor, daarvoor).
met dit, oor dit, vir dit are not Afrikaans — always fuse to daarmee, daaroor, daarvoor.
The daar-compounds are the back-pointing twins of the waar-compounds (see waar-compounds).

Now practice Afrikaans

Reading grammar gets you part of the way. The exercises are where it sticks — free, no signup needed.

Start learning Afrikaans→