The letter g is one of the most distinctive things about written Afrikaans, and one of the most misread by English speakers. It almost always spells a rough back-of-the-throat fricative — not the hard g of English "go" — and between vowels it has a habit of disappearing entirely, leaving behind a circumflex or a diaeresis as the only trace. This page sorts out the three spellings: plain g, the rare gh, and ng. (For drilling the actual sounds, see the g-sound; here the focus is spelling and the rules that move letters around.)
Plain g: the standard fricative
In the overwhelming majority of words, g spells the sound written in phonetic notation — a scrapy fricative made at the back of the mouth, similar to the ch in Scottish "loch" or German "Bach". It is not the hard English g.
| Word | Meaning | g sounds like |
|---|---|---|
| gaan | to go | — loch, not "go" |
| goed | good | |
| dag | day | at word end |
| berg | mountain | |
| genoeg | enough | twice |
Ek gaan môre stad toe.
I'm going to town tomorrow.
Dit was 'n lang dag — ek is gedaan.
It was a long day — I'm exhausted.
Intervocalic g: the disappearing letter
Here is the rule that makes Afrikaans spelling feel mysterious until you learn it. When a g sits between two vowels — typically because adding an ending (a plural, a comparative, an inflection) has pulled it into the middle of the word — that g is often deleted, and the two vowels come together. The deletion is not a quirk; it is regular, and it is the hidden engine behind a whole family of "irregular-looking" forms.
The classic case is laag → lae (low / low-plural-or-inflected). The base laag ends in -g. Add the ending -e and the g falls between the aa and the e; it deletes, and we are left with lae. Crucially the long vowel, no longer in a closed syllable, is now written with a single a: laag (double a, closed) becomes lae (single a, open).
| Base | Inflected | What happened |
|---|---|---|
| laag | lae | g deleted between vowels; aa → a |
| hoog | hoë | g deleted; diaeresis on the ë |
| droog | droë | g deleted; diaeresis on the ë |
| vlieg | vlieë | g deleted; diaeresis (flies) |
Die lae takke raak amper aan die grond.
The low branches almost touch the ground.
Die berge is hier baie hoog, met hoë kranse.
The mountains here are very high, with high cliffs.
Sometimes the vowels that meet after the g drops would be misread as a single sound, so a diaeresis is added to force them apart: hoog → hoë, droog → droë, vlieg → vlieë. The diaeresis says "start a new syllable here" — it is the spelling's way of repairing the gap the g left behind. See diaeresis rules.
The circumflex case: brug → brûe
The same g-deletion drives some of the circumflex plurals. Take brug (bridge). Its plural is brûe. Adding -e would put the g between u and e; the g deletes, the u and e meet, and to keep the vowel's quality the spelling fixes it with a circumflex: brûe. The bizarre-looking circumflex is simply the leftover footprint of a deleted g.
| Singular | Plural | Trigger |
|---|---|---|
| brug | brûe | g-deletion → circumflex (bridges) |
| rug | rûe | g-deletion → circumflex (backs) |
Twee van die ou brûe oor die rivier is afgesluit.
Two of the old bridges over the river are closed off.
gh: the rare hard-g spelling
Because plain g is reserved for the fricative, Afrikaans needs a separate spelling for the genuine hard English g sound when it appears in loanwords. That spelling is gh. It is uncommon, and seeing it is your signal: pronounce this like English "g", not like the throat-fricative.
| Word | Meaning | Origin |
|---|---|---|
| ghoen | shooting marble (the big one) | loan / regional |
| ghaar | aggressive / wild (informal) | loan |
| spaghetti | spaghetti | Italian loan |
| ghoeroe | guru | loan |
| ghries | grease | English loan |
Hy het my ghoen met die eerste skoot raak geskiet.
He hit my big marble with the very first shot.
Ons eet vanaand spaghetti.
We're having spaghetti tonight.
The takeaway is the division of labour: g = (the native fricative), gh = [g] (the borrowed hard g). The h is there precisely to flag "not the usual g".
ng: one sound, not two
ng spells a single sound, the velar nasal [ŋ] — the ng in English "sing". It is not an n followed by a separate hard g. This matters because an English speaker's instinct, especially mid-word, is to insert a in Afrikaans singer-type words have no hard g lurking inside.
| Word | Meaning | ng = [ŋ] |
|---|---|---|
| sing | to sing | [ŋ] at word end |
| lang | long | [ŋ] at word end |
| jong | young | [ŋ] at word end |
| koning | king | [ŋ] mid-word, no extra g |
| oggend | morning | note: gg here is , not ng |
Die kinders sing 'n lang lied by die kampvuur.
The children are singing a long song at the campfire.
Die jong koning het die land regeer.
The young king ruled the country.
At the end of a word, -ng is just the clean lang, jong end in a hummed nasal with no hard release. Inside a word, koning is ko-ning — [ŋ] with no [g] popping out before the second vowel.
Common mistakes
❌ Die laage takke
Incorrect — the g deletes between vowels and aa shortens to a: it is lae, not laage.
✅ Die lae takke
The low branches.
❌ Twee brugge oor die rivier
Incorrect — intervocalic g deletes and the circumflex appears: brûe, not brugge.
✅ Twee brûe oor die rivier
Two bridges over the river.
❌ Goed pronounced 'good' with an English g
Incorrect — plain g is the [x] fricative; gh would be needed for a hard g.
✅ Goed with the [x] throat-fricative
good.
❌ koning said 'ko-ning-g' with a hard g
Incorrect — ng is the single [ŋ] sound; there is no separate hard g.
✅ koning = ko-ning (sing sound)
king.
❌ hooge berge
Incorrect — hoog loses its g and takes a diaeresis when inflected: hoë.
✅ hoë berge
high mountains.
Key takeaways
- Plain g = , the back-of-throat fricative (loch), the default in almost every word — gaan, dag, berg.
- Intervocalic g deletes: when an ending pulls g between vowels it disappears (laag → lae, hoog → hoë, brug → brûe). This is the hidden cause of many "irregular" plurals.
- The leftover circumflex (û) and diaeresis (ë) are scars of that deleted g, not stress or decoration. See the circumflex page and diaeresis rules.
- gh = [g], the hard English g, used only in loanwords (ghoen, spaghetti).
- ng = [ŋ], one indivisible nasal (sing, lang, koning) — never n
- a separate hard g.
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Start learning Afrikaans→Related Topics
- The Afrikaans G: A Guttural FricativeA1 — How to pronounce the Afrikaans g — a voiceless back-of-the-mouth fricative like the ch in Scottish 'loch' — and how it differs from the English hard g.
- Spelling with the CircumflexA2 — When to write the circumflex (kappie) on ê ô î û — it marks a long, distinct vowel, separates minimal pairs like sê and se, and often marks the spot where a g has dropped out (brug → brûe).
- Irregular and Mutated PluralsA2 — Afrikaans plurals that the -e/-s rule cannot predict: the -ers and -ere relics of old Dutch neuter nouns, stem-vowel changes like stad/stede, and the f-to-w and d-voicing alternations that surface under inflection.
- Spelling Words with Deleted GB1 — Why hoog becomes hoë and brug becomes brûe — how dropping an intervocalic g forces a diaeresis or circumflex, unifying a whole family of plural, comparative and adjective spellings.
- Spelling with the DiaeresisA2 — The deelteken on ë, ï, ö and ü marks a new syllable where two vowels meet — and you can derive it from morpheme boundaries instead of memorising it.
- Plurals with the DiaeresisA2 — Why some Afrikaans plurals carry a diaeresis (oog→oë, knie→knieë, see→seë): the -e ending brings two vowels together, and the dots simply mark the syllable break.