eet and drink — Full Forms | Afrikaans Grammar

eet (to eat) and drink (to drink) are among the very first verbs you will use, and the good news is that both are completely regular: one present form for everyone, a straightforward future with sal, and a plain imperative. The only thing worth slowing down for is the perfect of eet — written geëet, with a diaeresis on the second e. It is the textbook example of an Afrikaans spelling rule, and getting it right (and remembering the closing nie in negatives) is most of what this page is about.

Core forms

Form	eet (eat)	drink (drink)
Infinitive	eet	drink
Present (all persons)	ek / jy / hy / ons / hulle eet	ek / jy / hy / ons / hulle drink
Perfect	het geëet	het gedrink
Future	sal eet	sal drink
Imperative	Eet!	Drink!

Ons eet gewoonlik om sewe-uur in die aand.

We usually eat at seven o'clock in the evening.

Ek drink elke oggend twee koppies koffie.

I drink two cups of coffee every morning.

Eet jou groente klaar, dan kry jy poeding.

Finish your vegetables, then you'll get pudding.

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One present form fits every subject: ek eet, jy eet, sy eet, ons eet, hulle eet. There is no -s on the "he/she" form and no separate plural — Afrikaans verbs never change for person or number.

The geëet trap

Afrikaans forms the perfect by adding ge- to the verb: werk → gewerk, drink → gedrink. Add ge- to eet and you get ge + eet, which would jam three e's against each other. Afrikaans solves this by putting a diaeresis (the two dots) on the e that starts a new syllable, signalling "read this e fresh — don't merge it with the one before." The result is geëet: ge-ëet, two syllables, pronounced roughly "khe-eat."

Het jy al geëet, of maak ek vir ons iets?

Have you eaten yet, or shall I make us something?

Ons het by die nuwe Italiaanse plek geëet.

We ate at the new Italian place.

Sy het nog niks vandag geëet nie.

She hasn't eaten anything today yet.

Compare its quiet, regular twin: drink just takes ge- with no fuss at all — gedrink. No diaeresis, no doubled letters, nothing to remember.

Ek het te veel koffie gedrink en kon nie slaap nie.

I drank too much coffee and couldn't sleep.

Het julle genoeg water gedrink vandag?

Have you drunk enough water today?

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geëet is the single form learners most often misspell. It is not "geeet" (three e's) and not "geët" (one e too few). It is ge-ë-et: the prefix ge, then ëet with the dots on the first e. The diaeresis is mandatory — leaving it off is a spelling error, not a stylistic choice.

Negatives: don't forget the closing nie

Afrikaans wraps a negated sentence in two negation words: the first nie sits where you'd expect, and a second nie closes the clause at the end. With eet and drink in the perfect, that means the final nie lands after the participle. English has nothing like this double nie, so it is easy to drop the closing one.

Ek het nie geëet nie — ek was nie honger nie.

I didn't eat — I wasn't hungry.

Hy drink nie alkohol nie.

He doesn't drink alcohol.

Ons het gister niks gedrink nie behalwe water.

We drank nothing but water yesterday.

The pattern is nie ... [verb] ... nie: open the negation, then close it at the end of the clause. Forgetting the second nie is one of the most common A1 mistakes, and it makes a sentence sound unmistakably foreign.

The future and the imperative

The future is the regular sal + infinitive, with the verb landing at the end of the clause. The imperative is just the bare verb — friendly or firm depending on tone.

Ons sal môre by die see vis eet.

We'll eat fish at the sea tomorrow.

Drink jou medisyne, dan voel jy beter.

Take (drink) your medicine, then you'll feel better.

Note that drink in Afrikaans covers taking liquid medicine — medisyne drink — where English switches to "take." It is the same broad "ingest a liquid" sense, just stretched a little wider than English drink.

Common mistakes

❌ Ek het pizza geeet.

Spelling error — three e's. The perfect needs the diaeresis: geëet.

✅ Ek het pizza geëet.

I ate pizza.

❌ Ek het nie geëet.

Incomplete negation — Afrikaans needs the closing nie at the end.

✅ Ek het nie geëet nie.

I didn't eat.

❌ Hy eets baie.

Wrong — no -s on the verb; it stays eet for every person.

✅ Hy eet baie.

He eats a lot.

❌ Ek het medisyne geëet.

Wrong verb — you 'drink' liquid medicine in Afrikaans, not 'eat' it.

✅ Ek het my medisyne gedrink.

I took (drank) my medicine.

Key takeaways

eet and drink are fully regular: one present form, future sal eet / sal drink, imperatives Eet! / Drink!
The perfect of eet is geëet — diaeresis mandatory; drink is the plain gedrink.
Don't drop the closing nie: Ek het nie geëet nie, Hy drink nie nie → Hy drink nie alkohol nie.
Afrikaans drink also covers taking liquid medicine (medisyne drink).
The geëet diaeresis is one instance of a general rule — see diaeresis rules and the wider past ge- prefix.

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