The verbs of thinking, believing, knowing and remembering form a tight family, and the most efficient way to learn them is not one by one but as a group sorted by two questions: what complement does it take? (a dat-clause, an om te infinitive, a bare object) and how does it build the perfect? Two patterns dominate. Several of these verbs carry an unstressed prefix (ver-, be-) and so form the perfect without ge- — het verstaan, het vergeet, het besef — while the prefixless ones take a normal ge- participle. Get the two columns of the table straight and you will rarely make a mistake with this group again. This page only aggregates and contrasts; for the mechanics of the missing ge-, see inseparable prefixes.
The reference table
| Verb | Meaning | Typical complement | Perfect | ge-? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| dink | think | dat-clause / aan + object | het gedink | yes |
| glo | believe | dat-clause / bare object | het geglo | yes |
| weet | know (a fact) | dat-clause / wh-clause | het geweet | yes |
| onthou | remember | object / dat / om te | het onthou | no |
| verstaan | understand | object / dat / wh-clause | het verstaan | no |
| vergeet | forget | object / dat / om te | het vergeet | no |
| besef | realise | dat-clause | het besef | no |
The split in the last two columns is not random: every verb that drops the ge- begins with an unstressed prefix — ont- in onthou, ver- in verstaan and vergeet, be- in besef. That prefix already occupies the slot where ge- would go, so the participle stays bare. The prefixless verbs dink, glo and weet have nothing in that slot, so they take the regular ge-. The clustering is by sound and shape, but it lands almost perfectly along a line of meaning, which is what makes it feel like an "irregularity" of the cognition group.
dink — think, with two complement frames
dink splits cleanly into two constructions, and English speakers regularly confuse them. dink dat reports an opinion ("I think that…"); dink aan means to have something on your mind, to picture or recall it; dink van asks for an evaluation ("what do you think of…?"). The preposition is doing real work here, and it is the single most common dink error.
Ek dink dat hulle te laat gaan kom.
I think they're going to arrive too late.
Ek dink heeldag aan jou.
I think about you all day.
Wat dink jy van die nuwe baas?
What do you think of the new boss?
In the perfect, dink takes a normal participle: het gedink. Note that the dat is often dropped in speech, exactly as English drops "that".
Ek het gedink jy het al gegaan.
I thought you'd already left.
glo and weet — believing and knowing facts
glo (believe) and weet (know) both head dat-clauses, and both keep the ge- in the perfect: het geglo, het geweet. weet is knowledge of facts — it always points at a dat-clause or a wh-question, never at a person. For knowing a person or place you need ken; the two are kept apart on weet vs ken.
Ek het nie geweet dat dit so duur is nie.
I didn't know it was so expensive.
Glo my, dit was nie my skuld nie.
Believe me, it wasn't my fault.
Sy het altyd geglo dat hy onskuldig is.
She always believed he was innocent.
The no-ge- block: verstaan, vergeet, besef, onthou
These four are the heart of why this page exists. All four head the same range of complements as the bare verbs — a direct object, a dat-clause, and (for onthou and vergeet) an om te infinitive of the action remembered or forgotten — but every one of them forms the perfect without ge-. This is the error English and Dutch learners make most: adding a ge- by analogy with the regular verbs.
Ek het nie verstaan wat hy bedoel het nie.
I didn't understand what he meant.
Sy het besef dat sy 'n fout gemaak het.
She realised she'd made a mistake.
Onthou om die deur te sluit.
Remember to lock the door.
Ek het heeltemal vergeet om jou te bel.
I completely forgot to call you.
Notice the om te in the last two: onthou and vergeet take an infinitive when what is remembered or forgotten is an action to perform. besef and verstaan lean on dat-clauses and wh-clauses instead, because you realise or understand a state of affairs, not an action to do. For the full paradigms of these two pairs, see the dedicated onthou and vergeet and verstaan pages.
For other verbs that lock onto a fixed preposition the way dink aan does, see verbs with aan and op.
Common mistakes
❌ Ek het dit nooit geverstaan nie.
Incorrect — verstaan never takes ge-.
✅ Ek het dit nooit verstaan nie.
I never understood it.
❌ Sy het gevergeet om te bel.
Incorrect — vergeet is inseparable, no ge-.
✅ Sy het vergeet om te bel.
She forgot to call.
❌ Hy het gebesef dat hy verkeerd was.
Incorrect — besef begins with unstressed be-, so no ge-.
✅ Hy het besef dat hy verkeerd was.
He realised he was wrong.
❌ Ek dink van jou.
Incorrect (meaning: I have an opinion of you) — wrong frame for 'I think about you'.
✅ Ek dink aan jou.
I'm thinking about you.
❌ Ek weet hom goed.
Incorrect — weet is for facts; knowing a person needs ken.
✅ Ek ken hom goed.
I know him well.
Key takeaways
- Sort cognition verbs by two questions: what complement (dat-clause, om te, or object) and does the perfect take ge-?
- dink, glo, weet keep the ge- (het gedink, het geglo, het geweet).
- verstaan, vergeet, besef, onthou drop it (het verstaan, het vergeet, het besef, het onthou) because of their unstressed prefix.
- dink changes meaning with its complement: dink dat (opinion), dink aan (have in mind), dink van (evaluate).
- weet is for facts only — use ken for people and places.
Now practice Afrikaans
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Start learning Afrikaans→Related Topics
- Inseparable Prefixes: be-, ver-, ont-, her-, er-, ge-B1 — The unstressed bound prefixes be-, ge-, her-, ont-, ver- and er- that never detach from the verb and suppress the ge- of the past participle — with stress as the diagnostic.
- Verbs with aan and op (dink aan, wag op)B1 — A lookup table of Afrikaans verbs that govern aan or op — dink aan, glo aan, wag op, reken op, let op, antwoord op — with the meanings, examples, and the wag op / wag vir split that English hides.
- weet vs ken (know a fact vs know a person)A2 — How Afrikaans splits English 'know' into weet (know a fact) and ken (be acquainted with a person, place or thing), with the rule, examples, and the edge cases.