Questions and answers travel together, and so do the two verbs that handle them: vra ("to ask") and antwoord ("to answer"). This page treats them as a pair and zeroes in on the one preposition that catches every English speaker out — antwoord op. In Afrikaans you don't answer a question directly; you answer on a question (antwoord op 'n vraag). Get the vra vir / vra of patterns and the antwoord op rule right and you can run a whole conversation. For the fuller range of vra's complement patterns — vra om for requests, versoek for formal requests — see the dedicated page vra (to ask); here we keep the focus on the vra/antwoord pairing.
The forms
Both verbs are fully regular. Each has one present-tense form for every subject, builds its perfect with het + a ge- participle, and its future with sal.
| Verb | Present | Perfect | Future | Imperative |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| vra | vra | het gevra | sal vra | Vra! |
| antwoord | antwoord | het geantwoord | sal antwoord | Antwoord! |
The participle of antwoord is geantwoord — the ge- prefix simply attaches to the stem antwoord; there is no diaeresis and no doubled letter, because ge- and a belong to separate syllables and need no marking. The participle of vra is gevra (not the Dutch gevraagd).
Hy het nie geantwoord nie.
He didn't answer.
Ek vra net een ding.
I'm only asking one thing.
Sy sal môre antwoord.
She'll answer tomorrow.
vra vir: who you ask
The person you ask is marked with vir. English "ask someone" has no preposition — you ask the man, ask him — but Afrikaans flags the person on the receiving end with vir, exactly as it does with gee ("give") and sê ("tell"). This vir is not "for"; it is the dative marker of the indirect object (see the dative vir).
Ek vra vir hom of hy tyd het.
I'm asking him whether he has time.
Vra vir die kelner vir nog water.
Ask the waiter for more water.
Sy het vir my gevra hoe laat dit is.
She asked me what time it is.
vra of versus vra dat
When vra introduces an embedded yes/no question — "ask whether / if" — Afrikaans uses of, never dat. The logic is in the meaning: of means "whether," leaving the answer open, which is exactly what a question does; dat means "that" and introduces a settled statement, so it cannot head a question. Using vra dat for a yes/no question is a straight transfer error.
Sy vra of ek kom.
She's asking whether I'm coming.
Vra vir hulle of die winkel nog oop is.
Ask them whether the shop's still open.
Ek het gevra of dit gaan reën.
I asked whether it was going to rain.
The one place dat does follow vra is when you ask that something be done — a demand or instruction (Ek vra dat almal stil bly, "I ask that everyone stay quiet") — but that is the rarer, more formal pattern. For an ordinary yes/no question, it is always of.
antwoord op: the key point
Here is the construction this page exists for. antwoord does not take a bare object the way English "answer" does. You do not antwoord die vraag; you antwoord op die vraag — literally "answer on the question." The question you respond to is introduced by op.
Antwoord op die vraag.
Answer the question.
Hy het op my brief geantwoord.
He replied to my letter.
Sy kon nie op die vraag antwoord nie.
She couldn't answer the question.
Why op? Afrikaans treats answering as landing on the thing you respond to — a question, a letter, an advertisement — the same way reageer op ("react to") and reken op ("count on") use op for the target of the action. So antwoord op 'n vraag, antwoord op 'n advertensie, antwoord op 'n brief: the response always settles on what prompted it.
There is a tidy alternative: the verb beantwoord ("to answer") does take a direct object — Hy het die vraag beantwoord ("He answered the question"). The be- prefix is precisely what lets the object attach directly, so you have a clean choice: antwoord *op die vraag or *beantwoord die vraag, same meaning. beantwoord is a touch more formal and is common in writing.
Beantwoord asseblief al die vrae.
Please answer all the questions. (more formal)
Putting the pair together
In a real exchange the two verbs interlock: you vra vir someone of something is so, and they antwoord op your question. Seeing them in one breath fixes both patterns.
Ek het vir die dokter gevra of dit ernstig is, en hy het dadelik op my vraag geantwoord.
I asked the doctor whether it was serious, and he answered my question straight away.
For the wider family of speaking and responding verbs — sê, vertel, praat, antwoord — and how each marks its addressee and its content, see communication verbs.
Common mistakes
❌ Antwoord die vraag.
Incorrect — antwoord needs op before the question: antwoord op die vraag.
✅ Antwoord op die vraag.
Answer the question.
❌ Vra die man of hy weet.
Incorrect — the person asked needs vir: vra vir die man.
✅ Vra vir die man of hy weet.
Ask the man whether he knows.
❌ Sy vra dat ek kom. (= whether)
Incorrect — for a yes/no question use of (whether), not dat (that).
✅ Sy vra of ek kom.
She's asking whether I'm coming.
❌ Hy het aan my vraag geantwoord.
Incorrect — answering takes op, not aan: antwoord op die vraag.
✅ Hy het op my vraag geantwoord.
He answered my question.
Key takeaways
- vra and antwoord are regular: perfect het gevra and het geantwoord (note ge-
- antwoord, no diaeresis), future sal vra / sal antwoord.
- The person you ask takes vir: vra vir die man — the dative vir.
- An embedded yes/no question uses of ("whether"), never dat: vra of hy kom.
- The headline rule: antwoord op — you answer on a question (antwoord op die vraag), never with a bare object.
- The alternative beantwoord takes a direct object (beantwoord die vraag) and is slightly more formal.
Now practice Afrikaans
Reading grammar gets you part of the way. The exercises are where it sticks — free, no signup needed.
Start learning Afrikaans→Related Topics
- Indirect QuestionsB1 — How to embed a question inside another sentence: yes/no with of ('whether'), wh-questions with the question word, both in verb-final subordinate order.
- Communication Verbs: sê, vra, vertel, antwoord, praat, geselsA2 — A lookup table of the core Afrikaans communication verbs — sê, vra, vertel, antwoord, praat, gesels, beweer — mapping each to its complement frame (dat/of-clause, vir-recipient, met/op) with one example apiece.
- vir as the Indirect-Object MarkerB1 — How vir marks the recipient or beneficiary of an action (gee dit vir my), and the distinctively Afrikaans habit of using vir to mark personal objects (ek ken vir hom).