Impersonal Constructions: dit and daar

Some sentences have no real subject doing anything — "it's raining", "it's late", "there's a problem". Afrikaans fills the empty subject slot with one of two dummy words, and choosing between them is the whole game. Use dit for weather, time and evaluations (dit reën, dit is laat), and daar for asserting that something exists (daar is 'n probleem). They are not interchangeable, and English — which uses "it" and "there" for roughly the same split — gives you a decent but imperfect guide. This page is about getting the choice right and avoiding the number trap in daar is. For dit as an ordinary pronoun ("it" referring back to a thing), see the pronoun dit.

The core split in one line

dit = dummy "it" (weather, time, conditions, evaluation). daar = existential "there" (something exists). If you can paraphrase with English "there is/are", use daar; otherwise the dummy subject is dit.

dit: weather, time and conditions

For weather and natural phenomena, Afrikaans uses dit exactly where English uses "it". There is no real subject — the rain is not raining something — so dit holds the slot.

The same dit covers the time and general state of things:

dit: evaluations and "it looks/seems"

dit is also the dummy subject for evaluative and seeming expressions — judgements about a whole situation rather than a particular thing. The big ones are dit lyk asof ("it looks as if"), dit blyk dat ("it appears that"), and dit maak nie saak nie ("it doesn't matter").

In all of these, dit points forward to the situation described by the following clause, not back to a thing. This is the dummy "it" of English "it's a pity that...", "it seems that..." — a clean one-to-one mapping.

daar: asserting that something exists

When you want to say that something exists or is present, you switch to daar — the existential "there". The standard frame is daar is (there is / there are) and its past daar was (there was / there were). Because daar sits in the first slot, the verb inverts and the real subject follows it, exactly the V2 word order you already know.

Notice that daar is not the subject — 'n probleem, tyd, baie mense are. daar is just the placeholder that opens the clause. The deeper machinery of existential and presentational daar (including the vivid daar kom die bus! narrative use) is covered on existential daar; here the focus is the contrast with dit and the number rule below.

The number trap: daar is is invariant

Here is the one rule English speakers get wrong most. English distinguishes "there is one" from "there are many" — the verb agrees with the following noun. Afrikaans does not. daar is stays daar is whether what follows is singular or plural. There is no daar syn or pluralised form to reach for; the verb simply never changes for number.

Same daar is in both — one apple, many apples, identical verb. This is genuinely simpler than English, but it feels wrong to English ears, so the instinct to "pluralise" the verb has to be actively suppressed. The same invariance holds in the past: daar was covers both "there was" and "there were".

One clause, both numbers, and daar was does not budge.

Choosing dit or daar: a quick decision

When you are unsure, run this test:

• Are you describing the weather, time, or how things are/seem? → dit (dit reën, dit is laat, dit lyk asof).
• Are you asserting that something exists or is present? → daar (daar is..., daar was...).

The English crutch works most of the time — English "it" → dit, English "there" → daar — but trust the meaning over the translation, because a few English "it" sentences (especially "it is" + a noun asserting existence) can tempt you toward the wrong one.

Both use "problem", but the first evaluates a situation (dummy dit) and the second asserts existence (existential daar). Read the meaning, not the noun.

Common mistakes

Key takeaways

• Use dummy dit for weather, time, conditions and evaluations: dit reën, dit is laat, dit lyk asof, dit maak nie saak nie.
• Use existential daar to assert that something exists: daar is 'n probleem, daar was nie tyd nie.
• daar is is invariant for number — one thing or many, it never pluralises (and daar was covers both "there was" and "there were"); this is simpler than English.
• The English crutch — "it" → dit, "there" → daar — is reliable but not perfect; trust the meaning (evaluation vs existence) over the translation.
• For the full existential and presentational system see existential daar; for dit as a referring pronoun see the pronoun dit.