Afrikaans verbs of feeling do not all behave the same way grammatically, and the trap for English speakers is that the difference is invisible from the meaning. Some emotion verbs demand a reflexive pronoun — you literally "shame yourself", "worry yourself", "delight yourself" — while others take a bare predicate like a copula, and still others take an ordinary direct object. This page sorts the emotion group by exactly that question of valency, because that is what trips learners up. The full inventory of reflexive verbs across every meaning lives on the reflexive verbs reference — that page owns the complete list, so here we zoom in only on the emotional ones and on the two everyday verbs voel and geniet that share the semantic field but follow completely different frames.
The reference table
| Verb | Meaning | Frame | Reflexive? | Perfect |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| skaam | be ashamed | jou skaam (oor / vir) | obligatory | het geskaam |
| bekommer | worry | jou bekommer (oor) | obligatory | het bekommer |
| verheug | be delighted / look forward | jou verheug (oor / in) | obligatory | het verheug |
| verbaas | be amazed | jou verbaas (oor) | obligatory | het verbaas |
| voel | feel | voel + bare predicate | no | het gevoel |
| geniet | enjoy | geniet + direct object | no | het geniet |
The table makes the pattern visible: the be- and ver- emotion verbs cluster the reflexive requirement, while the two plain verbs do not. That clustering is the practical takeaway — when you meet a new emotion verb built on ver- or be-, assume it wants a reflexive pronoun until you have evidence otherwise.
The obligatory-reflexive emotion verbs
With skaam, bekommer, verheug and verbaas, the pronoun is not optional decoration — leave it out and the sentence is simply ungrammatical. The verb describes a feeling that turns back on the experiencer, and the reflexive pronoun is how Afrikaans encodes that. The thing the feeling is about is then introduced by a preposition, usually oor (about/over).
Sy skaam haar oor wat sy gesê het.
She's ashamed of what she said.
Moenie jou so bekommer nie — alles sal regkom.
Don't worry so much — everything will work out.
Ek verheug my op die vakansie.
I'm looking forward to the holiday.
Hulle het hulle verbaas oor hoe vinnig dit gebeur het.
They were amazed at how quickly it happened.
Three of these four — bekommer, verheug, verbaas — also drop the ge- in the perfect, because they start with an unstressed prefix: het bekommer, het verheug, het verbaas. skaam has no prefix, so it keeps it: het geskaam. For the full mechanics of the reflexive requirement across the language, see inherent reflexives and the general reflexive verbs page.
Ek het my baie oor jou bekommer.
I worried a lot about you.
Hy het hom oor sy swak punte geskaam.
He was ashamed of his poor marks.
voel — the copular emotion verb
voel is the odd one out: it behaves like a linking verb, taking a bare predicate adjective with no reflexive and no object marking. Ek voel siek is built exactly like ek is siek — the adjective stays uninflected, with no -e ending. This is why voel sits with the copular class as much as with the emotion verbs.
Ek voel vandag glad nie lekker nie.
I don't feel well at all today.
Sy het skuldig gevoel oor die argument.
She felt guilty about the argument.
Voel jy beter na die slapie?
Do you feel better after the nap?
You can also use voel reflexively in a more literary register (ek voel my + predicate), but in everyday speech the bare ek voel siek is the norm. The predicate after voel never takes the attributive -e: it is voel siek, never voel sieke.
geniet — the transitive emotion verb
geniet (enjoy) is the mirror image of voel: it takes a plain direct object, the thing enjoyed. There is no reflexive and no predicate — you enjoy a meal, a film, a holiday. In the perfect it keeps a bare participle because of the unstressed ge- it already starts with: het geniet, not het gegeniet.
Ons het die ete baie geniet, dankie.
We really enjoyed the meal, thank you.
Geniet die naweek!
Enjoy the weekend!
Hy geniet dit om vroeg op te staan.
He enjoys getting up early.
That last example shows the one place geniet takes a clause: geniet dit om te + infinitive, where dit is a placeholder object pointing forward to the om te clause. For more idiomatic ways to talk about feelings and states, see emotion and state.
Common mistakes
❌ Sy skaam oor haar foute.
Incorrect — skaam needs the reflexive haar.
✅ Sy skaam haar oor haar foute.
She's ashamed of her mistakes.
❌ Moenie sig bekommer nie.
Incorrect — Afrikaans has no sig/zich; use the matching pronoun.
✅ Moenie jou bekommer nie.
Don't worry.
❌ Ek voel my siek.
Incorrect in everyday speech — voel takes a bare predicate.
✅ Ek voel siek.
I feel sick.
❌ Ek voel sieke vandag.
Incorrect — the predicate after voel takes no -e.
✅ Ek voel siek vandag.
I feel sick today.
❌ Ons het die ete gegeniet.
Incorrect — geniet already starts with ge-, so no extra ge-.
✅ Ons het die ete geniet.
We enjoyed the meal.
Key takeaways
- Emotion verbs in Afrikaans do not share one frame — sort them by valency.
- skaam, bekommer, verheug, verbaas demand an obligatory reflexive pronoun that matches the subject (sy skaam haar).
- The reflexive is the plain object pronoun — never sig or zich.
- voel is copular: bare predicate, no -e, no reflexive (ek voel siek).
- geniet is transitive: a direct object (geniet die ete), and no extra ge- in the perfect.
Now practice Afrikaans
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Start learning Afrikaans→Related Topics
- Inherently Reflexive VerbsB2 — A small closed set of Afrikaans verbs that obligatorily take a reflexive object although English does not — jou skaam (be ashamed), jou verbeel (imagine), jou haas (hurry).
- Reflexive Verbs and PronounsB1 — Afrikaans builds reflexive constructions from the ordinary object pronouns (ek was my, sy skaam haar) — there is no special reflexive like Dutch zich — and -self adds emphasis.
- Expressing Emotions and StatesB1 — How Afrikaans splits feelings between wees + adjective for emotions and kry for developing sensations — ek is bly versus ek kry koud — plus the idioms of mood.