Afrikaans has two everyday verbs that both come out as "stop" in English, and learners reach for them more or less at random — which is exactly the wrong instinct. stop is a borrowed verb that behaves like a regular Afrikaans verb (perfect het gestop), and it leans toward motion and physical halting: stopping a car, a bus, a clock. ophou is the native phasal verb (separable, perfect het opgehou) and it means cease doing an activity: stop smoking, stop arguing, stop crying. They overlap, but they are not interchangeable, and the complement they take is different. This page is about their forms and where each one belongs. For the related contrast between begin and ophou as a participle minimal pair, see begin and ophou — to begin and stop.
The forms, side by side
| Form | stop (loanword) | ophou (separable, native) |
|---|---|---|
| Infinitive | (om te) stop | (om) op te hou |
| Present (all persons) | ek / jy / hy stop | ek / jy / hy hou op |
| Perfect (past) | het gestop | het opgehou |
| Future | sal stop | sal ophou |
| Imperative (sg.) | Stop! | Hou op! |
Notice the two structural facts that fall straight out of this table. stop is a single solid word that never breaks apart — its perfect is the wholly regular het gestop, with ge- glued cleanly to the front, exactly like werk → gewerk. ophou is separable: in a main clause the prefix op detaches and slides to the end (ek hou op, Hou op!), and in the perfect the ge- is infixed into the middle (op-ge-hou → opgehou).
Die bus stop hier — ons moet vinnig afklim.
The bus stops here — we have to get off quickly.
Hou op! Jy gaan iets breek.
Stop it! You're going to break something.
stop: physical halting and motion
The loanword stop is your verb when something moving comes to a halt — vehicles, machines, the heart, a clock — and when you bring such a thing to a halt. It is most often transitive (you stop a car) or describes motion (the bus stops). Because it is borrowed, it spells and conjugates with no surprises: present stop, perfect het gestop, future sal stop. (For how Afrikaans absorbs and respells borrowed verbs, see loanword spelling.)
Stop die kar — ek dink ek het my beursie by die huis vergeet.
Stop the car — I think I left my wallet at home.
Die trein het by elke stasie gestop, so dit het ewig geneem.
The train stopped at every station, so it took forever.
My horlosie het gisteraand gestop; die battery is pap.
My watch stopped last night; the battery is dead.
You will also meet stop in the fixed road-sign sense — the red octagon in South Africa reads STOP, the same word — and in the everyday command Stop! shouted at a driver or a child running into the road.
ophou: ceasing an activity
ophou is the verb for stopping an activity you are engaged in — the phasal, "cease doing" meaning. You do not ophou a car; you ophou doing something: smoking, talking, crying, complaining. This is the verb that lines up with English "stop -ing" and "quit doing," and it is the one English speakers reach for too rarely because it has no single tidy English equivalent.
Sy het opgehou rook nadat haar pa siek geword het.
She stopped smoking after her father got sick.
Kan jy asseblief ophou met daardie geraas?
Can you please stop that noise?
Die kind het uiteindelik opgehou huil toe sy ma haar optel.
The child finally stopped crying when her mother picked her up.
In a finite main clause the particle splits off and goes to the end of the clause: ek hou nou op ("I'm stopping now"), die reën hou op ("the rain is stopping"). It only stays glued together in the infinitive (om op te hou), after a modal (ek wil ophou), and in the perfect participle (opgehou).
The complement: te / met versus a direct object
This is the heart of the split — what each verb is allowed to take after it.
ophou introduces the activity that ceases, in one of two frames. With a following verb, it takes a bare infinitive or (om) te: ophou rook, ophou om te rook, both meaning "stop smoking." With the activity expressed as a noun, it governs the preposition met ("with"): ophou met rook, ophou met die lawaai — literally "stop with the smoking," "stop with the noise." English has nothing parallel to this met, so it must simply be learned.
Hy het opgehou met sy studies toe die geld opraak.
He stopped his studies when the money ran out.
Ons moet ophou om so baie kos te mors.
We need to stop wasting so much food.
stop, by contrast, takes a direct object — the moving thing you halt — and does not take met or an infinitive of activity. You stop die kar (stop the car), not stop met die kar and not stop ry for "stop driving." If you want "stop driving" in the sense of giving up the activity, you would say ophou ry.
Die polisie het die kar by die padblokkade gestop.
The police stopped the car at the roadblock.
Hy moet ophou ry as hy so moeg is — dis gevaarlik.
He should stop driving if he's that tired — it's dangerous.
Register: which one sounds more natural
In everyday speech both are extremely common, but they are not stylistically equal. Hou op! is the natural, native-feeling command for "Stop it! / Cut it out!" addressed to a person doing something annoying. Stop! is the natural command to a driver or to halt motion. Saying Stop! to a chatting child sounds abrupt and slightly off; Hou op! is what a parent actually says. Conversely, ophou a vehicle is simply wrong.
Hou op met julle gestry — ek kan myself nie hoor dink nie!
Stop your arguing — I can't hear myself think!
Stop net hier voor die winkel, dan spring ek vinnig in.
Just stop here in front of the shop, then I'll nip in quickly.
Common mistakes
❌ Hou die kar op.
Incorrect — you don't ophou a vehicle; ophou is for ceasing an activity.
✅ Stop die kar.
Stop the car.
To halt a moving thing, use stop with a direct object. ophou never takes a vehicle as its object.
❌ Sy het gestop rook verlede jaar.
Marked — to express quitting an activity, use ophou, not stop.
✅ Sy het opgehou rook verlede jaar.
She stopped smoking last year.
"Quit/cease doing X" is ophou, not stop. Reserve het gestop for physical halting.
❌ Ek ophou nou met die werk.
Incorrect — in a main clause the particle op must split off: hou ... op.
✅ Ek hou nou op met die werk.
I'm stopping work now.
In a finite main clause ophou splits: ek hou op. The whole word stays together only in the infinitive, after a modal, and in the participle opgehou.
❌ Hou op rook. (meaning the noun 'smoking')
Marked — with the activity as a noun, ophou needs met.
✅ Hou op met die rook.
Stop the smoking.
When the activity is framed as a noun, use ophou met. The bare infinitive ophou rook is fine for "stop smoking" as an action, but the met frame is needed once you treat it as a thing.
❌ Die bus het gestop te ry.
Incorrect — stop does not take a te-infinitive of activity.
✅ Die bus het opgehou ry by die eindpunt.
The bus stopped running at the terminus.
For "stopped doing," even with a vehicle, you switch to ophou + infinitive. stop simply halts; ophou ends an ongoing activity.
Key takeaways
- stop is a loanword, fully regular: perfect het gestop, future sal stop, command Stop! It means halt a moving thing and takes a direct object.
- ophou is native and separable: perfect het opgehou, command Hou op! It means cease an activity and splits in main clauses (ek hou op).
- Complements diverge: stop die kar (direct object) versus ophou rook / ophou om te rook (infinitive) / ophou met die lawaai (noun with met).
- Register: Hou op! is the natural "Cut it out!"; Stop! is for halting motion. They are not freely swappable.
- The met after ophou has no English equivalent — learn the frame ophou met + noun.
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Start learning Afrikaans→Related Topics
- Phasal Verbs: begin, ophou, aanhou, gaanB1 — The verbs that mark the start, continuation, and end of an action — begin (start), ophou (stop), aanhou (keep on), and inchoative gaan — and the complements each one takes.
- Separable Verbs: opstaan, aankom, uitgaanA2 — How separable verbs split — the stressed particle drops to the end of a main clause but rejoins the stem in subordinate clauses and infinitives.
- Spelling Loanwords and InternationalismsB1 — How Afrikaans adapts borrowed spellings — nativising some words fully, keeping foreign letters in others, and always attaching native endings on top.