J, TJ, DJ and Other Consonants

Most Afrikaans consonants are read more or less as an English speaker expects. This page covers the handful that are not — the letters and clusters whose Afrikaans value would trip you up if you read them with English instincts. The big one is j, which sounds like English y, never like the j of "jam". Close behind is the cluster tj, a ch-like sound that turns out to be the gateway to the entire diminutive system — the most productive piece of word-building in the language. Get these few sounds right and your accent jumps noticeably. (The famously guttural g and the rolled r have their own pages — see the Afrikaans g and the rolled r.)

j = English y

This is the single most important consonant fact on this page. Afrikaans j is pronounced like the English y in "yes" — a glide, not the "dzh" of English j. So ja ("yes") is said "yah", and jaar ("year") is "yaar". There is no j-as-in-jam anywhere in native Afrikaans words.

This matches German and Dutch (where ja is also "yah"), and is the older European value of the letter. English is the odd one out for having shifted j to the "dzh" sound. So if you have any German or Dutch, your instinct here is already correct; it is the English habit you have to suppress.

tj — the ch-like sound at the heart of diminutives

The cluster tj is pronounced like the ch in English "cheese" — or, said more precisely, like a soft ty run together, the sound a phonetician writes as a palatal stop. You meet it in two places.

First, in a few ordinary words: tjank ("to whine / howl") and tjop ("chop", as in a meat chop) start with it.

Second — and this is where it matters enormously — tj is the core of the diminutive ending -tjie. Afrikaans builds diminutives constantly (it is how you say "little", express affection, soften, and even just refer to small things), and the most common ending is -tjie, pronounced roughly "-kee" with that ch-like onset. So bietjie ("a little bit") is "bee-kee", and katjie ("kitten") is "ka-kee".

The apostrophe in foreign-stem diminutives

When a noun ends in a vowel — especially a borrowed word — the diminutive is written with an apostrophe before the ending, to keep the stem readable: foto → foto'tjie ("little photo"), video → video'tjie. The apostrophe is purely orthographic; it does not change the sound, which is still the tj ending. (See the apostrophe for the full rule.)

dj — the rare English j

If j is never "dzh" in native words, where does that sound live? In the cluster dj, found almost only in loanwords and names: djati (teak), broodjie in some pronunciations, and borrowed words like adjudant. Here dj is read like the English j in "jam". It is rare, so do not overthink it — just know that the "dzh" sound, when it does appear, is spelled dj, not plain j.

sj — the sh sound

The cluster sj is pronounced like English sh in "ship". It appears mostly in loanwords: sjokolade ("chocolate") is "sho-ko-laa-de", and sjef ("chef") begins like English "shef". Whenever you see sj, say "sh".

s is always voiceless — it never becomes z

Here is a consonant that looks easy but hides a real trap. Afrikaans s is always voiceless — the hissing s of English "sea" — no matter where it sits in the word. English, by contrast, routinely voices s to z between vowels: think of "rose", "music", "easy", "design", all said with a z sound. Afrikaans never does this. Between two vowels, s stays a clean, hissing s.

So base loan-type words and intervocalic s keep the hiss: musiek ("music") is "mu-seek" with an s, not "mu-zeek". lees ("to read") ends in a crisp s. gesig ("face") has an s in the middle, not a z.

z is rare — and a loanword signal

Because s covers the s-sound, the letter z is genuinely rare in Afrikaans and appears almost only in loanwords and proper names: zero, Zambië ("Zambia"), zoeloe ("Zulu"), zoem ("zoom / buzz"). When z does appear, it is read as a voiced z (as in English "zoo"). Seeing a z is a near-certain sign that the word came from somewhere else. (The native equivalents use s: Afrikaans says sero alongside zero in some spellings, and the older words simply use s.)

Quick reference

For the sj and tj clusters in more depth, including their behaviour in connected speech, see consonant clusters: sj, tj, dj, ts.

Common mistakes

Key takeaways

• j = English y: ja is "yah", jaar is "yaar". The "dzh" sound never occurs in native words.
• tj = a ch-like sound and is the core of the diminutive ending -tjie (bietjie, katjie) — your gateway to the diminutive system.
• dj is the rare English j; sj is English sh (sjokolade).
• s is always voiceless — it never voices to z between vowels the way English does (musiek, gesig).
• z is rare and signals a loanword or proper name (Zambië, zero).
• Vowel-final foreign stems take an apostrophe before -tjie: foto'tjie (see the apostrophe).