In most European languages the infinitive is a special form with its own ending — Spanish hablar, French parler, Dutch lopen, English's telltale "to walk". Afrikaans threw that ending away. The Afrikaans infinitive is just the bare verb: loop, identical to the present tense and to the imperative. What you have to learn instead is not a form but two frames — when the bare infinitive stands alone, and when it needs the little wrapper om te.
The infinitive is the bare verb
There is no infinitive ending in Afrikaans. Where Dutch has lopen, werken, eten, Afrikaans has plain loop, werk, eet. This is one of the language's great simplifications: the infinitive, the present tense, and the imperative are all the same single form.
| English infinitive | Afrikaans | Dutch (for contrast) |
|---|---|---|
| to walk | loop | lopen |
| to work | werk | werken |
| to eat | eet | eten |
| to come | kom | komen |
Frame 1: the bare infinitive after modals
After a modal verb (kan, mag, moet, wil, sal) and a few similar helpers, the infinitive appears bare — no om, no te, nothing extra — and it goes to the end of the clause.
Ek wil slaap.
I want to sleep.
Ek kan Afrikaans praat.
I can speak Afrikaans.
Jy moet nou gaan.
You have to go now.
Notice there is no word for "to" in any of these. English says "I want to sleep"; Afrikaans says simply ek wil slaap, with the infinitive standing naked at the end. Inserting a "to"-word here is the single most common English-speaker error, and we return to it below. The modal verbs get their own overview.
Frame 2: om te + infinitive
For most non-modal situations where English uses "to + verb" — expressing a purpose, or completing a verb like hope, try, forget, time-to — Afrikaans wraps the infinitive in om te. The verb still goes last; om opens the little clause and te sits directly before the verb.
Ek hoop om te kom.
I hope to come.
Dit is tyd om te gaan.
It's time to go.
Ek probeer om die werk te verstaan.
I'm trying to understand the work.
Sy het vergeet om die deur te sluit.
She forgot to lock the door.
In the last two examples you can see that when there is an object or other material, it slides in between om and te — om die werk te verstaan, om die deur te sluit — and the infinitive still closes the clause. This is the same end-of-clause logic you meet everywhere in Afrikaans verbs. The internal mechanics of these clauses are covered in om te clauses.
Why om te exists — and why "te" alone sometimes shows up
The om literally meant "in order to", and you can still feel that purpose sense in Ek gaan stad toe *om brood te koop — "I'm going to town (in order) to buy bread". Over time *om te generalised to most infinitival complements, even where there is no real "purpose" left. A handful of verbs and set expressions take a bare te without om (for example behoort te — "ought to", hoef te — "need to"), but as a beginner you are safe defaulting to om te; the te-only cases are listed on the te-infinitive page.
Ek gaan winkel toe om brood te koop.
I'm going to the shop to buy bread.
Jy behoort te rus.
You ought to rest. (te without om — a fixed case)
The infinitive equals the present and imperative
It is worth dwelling on how much this simplification buys you. Because Afrikaans dropped the -en ending, one form does three jobs:
Ek werk hard.
I work hard. (present)
Werk hard!
Work hard! (imperative)
Ek wil hard werk.
I want to work hard. (infinitive)
The word werk is identical in all three. Learning the present tense therefore hands you the infinitive and the command form for free — a small example of how Afrikaans repeatedly trades fussy morphology for a little extra attention to word order.
Common mistakes
❌ Ek wil te slaap. / Ek wil om te slaap.
Incorrect — after a modal the infinitive is bare; no te and no om te.
✅ Ek wil slaap.
I want to sleep.
❌ Ek hoop kom.
Incorrect — a non-modal verb like hoop needs the om te wrapper.
✅ Ek hoop om te kom.
I hope to come.
❌ Ek wil lopen. / Ek wil slapen.
Incorrect — adding a Dutch -en ending. The Afrikaans infinitive is the bare stem.
✅ Ek wil loop. / Ek wil slaap.
I want to walk. / I want to sleep.
❌ Dit is tyd om gaan.
Incorrect — om te needs the te before the verb, not om alone.
✅ Dit is tyd om te gaan.
It's time to go.
Key takeaways
- The infinitive is the bare verb — no ending, identical to the present and imperative (drop the Dutch -en).
- After a modal, use the bare infinitive at the clause end (ek wil slaap).
- For most other "to + verb" meanings, wrap it in om te (ek hoop om te kom).
- A few fixed verbs take bare te without om — see the te-infinitive page.
- The internal word order of these clauses is covered in om te clauses; for the modal frame, see the modals overview.
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
- Infinitival Clauses: om teA2 — The om te + infinitive clause — Afrikaans's standard 'in order to' and infinitive complement — where om opens the clause and te clings to the infinitive at the very end, bracketing everything in between.
- Modal Verbs: kan, mag, moet, wil, salA1 — The Afrikaans modals kan, mag, moet, wil and sal each take a bare infinitive that lands at the end of the clause — your first taste of verb-bracket word order.
- The Present TenseA1 — The Afrikaans present tense is just the bare verb — one form for every subject, covering habitual, ongoing, and even scheduled-future meaning.
- The te-Infinitive Without omB2 — A small, closed set of posture verbs and fixed expressions take a bare te-infinitive — staan te wag, is te koop, het te doen met — distinct from the productive om te clause.