Proverb: Geduld is 'n deug

Some proverbs are valuable precisely because they are simple. Geduld is 'n deug — "patience is a virtue" — is the most basic sentence shape Afrikaans has: a subject, the linking verb is, and a predicate. And yet, packed into those four words, an A2 learner meets three things that English does differently: an abstract noun standing bare with no article, the copula is doing the work of English is, and the predicate noun introduced by 'n. Read it slowly and you have a miniature grammar lesson you can carry in your head.

The proverb and what it means

Literally and figuratively this is the same as the English saying: being patient is a good quality of character, something worth cultivating. You say it to console someone who is fed up with waiting, or to gently remind a child (or yourself) not to rush. It belongs to the same family as the longer encouragements Alles op sy tyd ("everything in its own time") and the reassurance Geduld oorwin alles ("patience conquers all").

The copula is

The verb at the heart of the sentence is is — the present tense of wees ("to be"). It links the subject (geduld) to what is said about it ('n deug). This is exactly what English is does, so the trap here is not meaning but form: Afrikaans is never changes for person or number. English has am / is / are; Afrikaans has only is for every subject in the present.

So geduld is..., ek is..., hulle is... — one form throughout. There is nothing to conjugate.

The predicate noun with 'n

After is comes 'n deug — "a virtue". The little 'n is the indefinite article, "a / an", and it is written with an opening apostrophe because it is a worn-down form of the older een. It is always lower-case, even at the start of a sentence, and the next word carries the capital instead.

Crucially, when you classify something — say what category it belongs to — Afrikaans keeps the 'n, just as English keeps "a": patience is *a virtue, geduld is 'n deug. This matches English closely, which is why learners rarely drop the 'n* here.

The article-less abstract subject

Here is the point where English speakers slip. The subject is Geduld — patience — standing completely bare, with no article in front of it. Abstract nouns (patience, honesty, love, freedom) and uncountable masses, when spoken of in general, take no article at all in Afrikaans. This matches English ("patience is...", not "the patience is..."), but learners coming from languages that do article such nouns — and even careful English speakers over-correcting — sometimes insert die ("the").

Put die in front and the meaning shifts from "patience in general" to "the patience (we were just talking about)". The bare noun is what makes the saying a general truth rather than a comment on one specific instance. For the fuller rules on when Afrikaans omits the article, see article omission.

A bonus point: the irregular attributive goeie

The proverb itself does not contain an adjective, but it sits right next to one of Afrikaans's most useful irregular forms, so it is worth meeting here. The word for "good" is goed. Standing alone after is, it stays goed (Dit is goed — "that's good"). But put it in front of a noun and it must change to goeie: the -d drops out and -ie is added.

So you would never write 'n goede ding (that spelling is Dutch); the Afrikaans form is 'n goeie ding — "a good thing".

For the full set of these irregular attributives (oud → ou, koud → koue, and friends), see irregular adjectives.

Common mistakes

Key takeaways

• Geduld is 'n deug ("patience is a virtue") is the simplest Afrikaans sentence shape: subject + copula is
  • predicate.
• The copula is is invariant — one form for am / is / are.
• A predicate noun keeps 'n ("a"): is 'n deug, just like English "is a virtue".
• A general abstract noun takes no article: Geduld is..., never Die geduld is....
• "Good" is goed after is but irregular goeie before a noun: 'n goeie ding, never goede.