A job interview is one of the highest-stakes formal situations a language learner can face, and it concentrates a remarkable amount of grammar into a few minutes: the polite second-person pronoun u, the perfect tense used to describe your experience, modal verbs softened for politeness, and the careful connectors of formal speech. This page presents an original dialogue — composed for this guide — between an interviewer (Mev. Botha, the manager) and a candidate (Daniël). Read the whole conversation first; then work through the annotations, which explain why each formal choice was made.
The dialogue
Mev. Botha: Goeiemôre, Daniël. Welkom. Sou u 'n bietjie van uself kon vertel?
Daniël: Goeiemôre, mevrou. Dankie dat u my genooi het. Ek het die afgelope vyf jaar as bemarkingsbeampte gewerk, hoofsaaklik in die kleinhandelsektor.
Mev. Botha: Aangenaam. En wat het u na ons maatskappy aangetrek?
Daniël: Ek het reeds lank u maatskappy se werk bewonder. Ek glo my ervaring sou waardevol kon wees vir die span.
Mev. Botha: Pragtig. Kan u vir my 'n voorbeeld gee van 'n projek wat u gelei het?
Daniël: Verlede jaar het ek 'n veldtog bestuur wat ons verkope met twintig persent verhoog het. Die projek is binne begroting voltooi.
Mev. Botha: Indrukwekkend. Sou u bereid wees om soms ná-ure te werk indien 'n sperdatum dit vereis?
Daniël: Beslis, mevrou. Ek sou geen probleem daarmee hê nie, mits dit vooraf gereël word.
Mev. Botha: Goed. Het u enige vrae vir my?
Daniël: Ja, dankie. Mag ek vra hoe die span tans gestruktureer is?
Mev. Botha: Natuurlik. Ons sal dit in die volgende rondte bespreek. Ons sal u teen Vrydag laat weet.
Daniël: Baie dankie vir u tyd, mevrou. Ek sien uit na u terugvoer.
How u carries the whole register
The first thing to notice is the pronoun u — the formal "you" — running through every line. Both speakers use it because an interview is precisely the kind of social distance u exists to mark: between strangers, where one party holds authority. Swapping in the informal jy / jou would instantly read as too casual, even rude.
Sou u 'n bietjie van uself kon vertel?
Could you tell us a little about yourself? (u = formal 'you'; uself = formal 'yourself')
Wat het u na ons maatskappy aangetrek?
What attracted you to our company? (formal u as object)
Note also the possessive form: u maatskappy ("your company"), not jou maatskappy. The formal pronoun pulls its whole family with it — subject u, object u, possessive u, reflexive uself. The candidate also addresses the interviewer as mevrou ("madam"), reinforcing the distance. The full paradigm and the optional capitalisation U in very formal writing are covered on the formal pronoun u.
The perfect for experience
When Daniël describes his background, every claim lands in the perfect tense — the het + ge- past — because that is how Afrikaans frames completed experience that bears on the present. "I have worked as...", "I have led...", "I have managed..." This is the workhorse of the whole interview: your experience is a set of completed actions you are presenting now.
Ek het die afgelope vyf jaar as bemarkingsbeampte gewerk.
I have worked as a marketing officer for the past five years. (het ... gewerk = perfect)
Verlede jaar het ek 'n veldtog bestuur wat ons verkope verhoog het.
Last year I managed a campaign that increased our sales. (het ... bestuur / verhoog het)
Observe the word order: the auxiliary het sits early, and the participle (gewerk, bestuur, verhoog) is pushed to the end of its clause — the verb-final bracket that defines Afrikaans past-tense syntax. Note too that bestuur does not take a ge- prefix: verbs beginning with certain unstressed prefixes (be-, ver-, ont-, her-, ge-) form their participle without an added ge-, so the participle is identical to the base form. This is a detail the past tense overview treats in full.
Ek het reeds lank u maatskappy se werk bewonder.
I have long admired your company's work. (bewonder, a be- verb, takes no extra ge-)
Modal politeness: sou, kon, mag
The most elegantly formal moments in the dialogue come from modal verbs used to soften requests and offers. Afrikaans, like English, makes requests more polite by stepping back from the present into the conditional. The key form is sou (the past/conditional of sal, "would"), often paired with kon ("could", past of kan).
Sou u 'n bietjie van uself kon vertel?
Could you tell us a little about yourself? (sou + kon = doubly softened 'would you be able to')
A blunt Vertel van uself ("Tell us about yourself") would be a command; Sou u ... kon vertel? turns it into a courteous invitation. Daniël uses the same conditional move to present himself modestly:
Ek glo my ervaring sou waardevol kon wees vir die span.
I believe my experience could be valuable to the team. (sou ... kon wees hedges the claim politely)
Sou u bereid wees om soms ná-ure te werk?
Would you be willing to work after hours sometimes? (sou for a tactful question)
The modal mag ("may", asking permission) appears when Daniël requests the floor — Mag ek vra...? ("May I ask...?") — which is markedly more deferential than a plain Kan ek vra? ("Can I ask?"). The modal system and these past/conditional forms are laid out on the modals overview.
The passive and formal connectors
Two more formal features round out the register. First, the passive voice, which lets the speaker foreground the result rather than the doer — natural in professional reporting. Daniël says the project is voltooi ("was completed") rather than naming who completed it, and offers to work late provided things gereël word ("are arranged").
Die projek is binne begroting voltooi.
The project was completed within budget. (passive: is ... voltooi)
Ek sou geen probleem daarmee hê nie, mits dit vooraf gereël word.
I would have no problem with it, provided it is arranged in advance. (passive: word gereël)
Second, the formal connectors. Casual Afrikaans leans on as ("if") and maar ("but"); formal Afrikaans reaches for tighter, more written-sounding links: indien ("if", formal), mits ("provided that"), hoofsaaklik ("mainly"), reeds ("already"). These small choices quietly signal that the speaker is operating in a professional register.
Sou u bereid wees om ná-ure te werk indien 'n sperdatum dit vereis?
Would you be willing to work after hours if a deadline requires it? (indien, formal 'if')
Common mistakes
The errors here are the two that B2 English speakers make most: sliding out of the formal register, and translating English interview phrases word-for-word.
❌ Dankie dat jy my genooi het, mevrou.
Incorrect — register mix: jy with the formal mevrou. Use u throughout.
✅ Dankie dat u my genooi het, mevrou.
Thank you for inviting me, madam.
❌ Ek werk as bemarkingsbeampte vir vyf jaar.
Incorrect — English-style present + 'for'; Afrikaans uses the perfect for completed experience.
✅ Ek het vyf jaar lank as bemarkingsbeampte gewerk.
I worked as a marketing officer for five years.
❌ Ek waardeer dit dat jy my tyd gee.
Calque of 'I appreciate you giving me your time'; clunky and informal jy. Use the idiomatic formal closer.
✅ Baie dankie vir u tyd, mevrou.
Thank you very much for your time, madam.
❌ Kan u my vertel oor uself?
Too blunt for an interview opener; the bare present sounds like a command.
✅ Sou u 'n bietjie van uself kon vertel?
Could you tell us a little about yourself? (softened with sou ... kon)
Key takeaways
- An interview runs on the formal u-register: subject, object, and possessive u, plus uself and mevrou / meneer — never mixed with jy / jou for the same person.
- Describe experience in the perfect (het + ge-): Ek het ... gewerk / bestuur; remember that be-/ver-/ont- verbs take no extra ge- (bewonder, voltooi).
- Make requests and offers polite with the conditional modals sou ("would") and kon ("could"), and ask permission with mag ("may").
- The passive (is voltooi, word gereël) and formal connectors (indien, mits, reeds, hoofsaaklik) reinforce the professional register.
- Avoid the two B2 traps: register-mixing (u/jy) and English interview calques — reach for the idiomatic Afrikaans formula instead.
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Start learning Afrikaans→Related Topics
- Dialogue: A Disagreement (B2)B2 — An original Afrikaans dialogue of a polite disagreement, annotated for negation scope, concessive connectors, modal particles, and clefts.
- Formal vs Informal AfrikaansB1 — The markers that separate a formal letter from casual speech: u vs jy, neem vs vat, full forms vs contractions like dis, particle density, and the avoidance of English loans in formal writing.
- The Formal Pronoun uA2 — The polite second-person pronoun u — when to use it instead of jy, why it triggers no special verb form, and how it differs from French vous or German Sie.
- The Past Tense: het + ge-participleA1 — Afrikaans has one ordinary past tense — het plus a ge-participle at the end of the clause — and it covers both 'I walked' and 'I have walked'.
- Modal Verbs: kan, mag, moet, wil, salA1 — The Afrikaans modals kan, mag, moet, wil and sal each take a bare infinitive that lands at the end of the clause — your first taste of verb-bracket word order.