Afrikaans has two completely different grammatical machines for talking about possibility, necessity and likelihood, and they are easy to confuse because their meanings overlap. One machine is the set of modal verbs — kan, moet, mag, sal, wil — proper verbs that inflect, take an infinitive, and sit in the verb slots of the clause. The other is a set of modal particles — seker, glo, mos, tog, darem — small invariant words that never inflect, never take an infinitive, and float in the middle field, tinting the whole sentence with the speaker's attitude. Telling them apart is a C1-level skill, because the same English word ("probably", "must") can land in either system, and getting the grammar wrong is the surest sign a learner is translating rather than thinking in Afrikaans.
The modal verbs: real verbs with real syntax
A modal verb is a verb. Kan ("can"), moet ("must / have to"), mag ("may / be allowed"), wil ("want to"), sal ("will") all behave like other verbs: they take the finite-verb position, they govern an infinitive without te, and they carry the clause's tense. They express semantic modality — actual possibility, obligation, permission.
Dit kan vanaand reën.
It can / might rain tonight.
Jy moet jou paspoort saambring.
You have to bring your passport.
Mag ek hier parkeer?
May I park here?
Because they are verbs, they have past forms (kan → kon, moet → moes, mag → mog, now archaic and rarely used, wil → wou, sal → sou) and they push the main verb to the end of the clause as a bare infinitive.
Ons kon nie betyds daar wees nie.
We couldn't be there in time.
Sy wou eintlik saamgaan, maar sy was siek.
She actually wanted to come along, but she was ill.
For the full meaning-by-meaning treatment of these verbs, see modal verbs and their meanings. This page is about telling them apart from their look-alike cousins, the particles.
The modal particles: invariant attitude markers
A modal particle is not a verb. It does not inflect, it has no past tense of its own, it governs no infinitive, and it never occupies a verb slot. It lives in the middle field — the stretch after the finite verb and before the heavy stuff at the end — and its job is to colour the clause: to mark how sure the speaker is, where the information came from, or how it lands socially. The clause already has its own verb; the particle simply tints it.
Compare the two systems side by side. With a modal verb you say the rain is possible; with the particle seker you keep an ordinary verb and add your estimate of likelihood:
Dit kan reën.
It can / might rain. (modal verb — possibility)
Dit gaan seker reën.
It's probably going to rain. (particle seker on an ordinary future)
In the second sentence the verb cluster is gaan ... reën (the ordinary "going to" future), and seker sits inside it as a comment, not as part of the verb. You cannot conjugate seker, you cannot put it in the past, and you cannot make it govern reën the way kan does.
| Modal verb (kan, moet, mag) | Modal particle (seker, glo, mos) | |
|---|---|---|
| Word class | verb | particle (invariant) |
| Inflects for tense? | yes (kan → kon) | no, ever |
| Takes an infinitive? | yes (kan gaan) | no |
| Position | finite-verb slot | middle field |
| Expresses | possibility, obligation, permission | likelihood, evidentiality, attitude |
seker: the likelihood particle
Seker as a particle means "probably / surely / no doubt" — it is the speaker's bet on how likely the clause is. Do not confuse it with the predicative adjective seker ("certain"), as in Ek is seker ("I am sure"). As a particle it sits in the middle field on top of an ordinary verb.
Hy is seker tuis — sy kar staan voor die huis.
He's probably home — his car's parked outside.
Sy het seker vergeet om te bel.
She probably forgot to call.
Notice the past tense lives entirely in het ... vergeet; seker does not budge. That is the diagnostic.
glo: a reportative evidential, not the verb "to believe"
This is the distinction most references miss, and it is the jewel of the system. Afrikaans has a verb glo meaning "to believe" — Ek glo jou ("I believe you"), Sy glo aan spoke ("she believes in ghosts"). But there is also a particle glo, identical in spelling, that means something quite different: "apparently / supposedly / it's said". It is a reportative evidential — it marks the information as second-hand, something the speaker heard rather than witnessed.
Hy het glo gewen.
He apparently won. (so I hear)
Sy het glo gekom, maar ek het haar nie gesien nie.
She apparently came, but I didn't see her.
Die president het glo bedank.
The president has reportedly resigned.
In every one of these, glo is not asserting that the speaker believes anything — it is distancing the speaker from the claim, attributing it to hearsay. The verb glo would behave completely differently: it would be the main verb and take a complement clause.
Ek glo hy het gewen.
I believe he won. (verb glo — the speaker's own conviction)
Hy het glo gewen.
He apparently won. (particle glo — reported, speaker uncommitted)
These two sentences are nearly opposite in stance: the first commits the speaker, the second explicitly withholds commitment. The difference is entirely structural — verb glo is the clause's main verb at the front; particle glo is a middle-field tint sitting inside someone else's verb cluster.
How the two systems combine
Because they belong to different machines, a modal verb and a modal particle can appear in the same clause without clashing — the verb does the modality, the particle adds the attitude. The particle slots into the middle field while the modal verb holds the verb positions.
Jy moet seker eers vra voordat jy gaan.
You should probably ask first before you go.
Hy kan glo nie swem nie.
He apparently can't swim. (reported, with the modal kan)
Ons sal mos môre in elk geval daar wees.
We'll be there tomorrow anyway, as you know.
In Hy kan glo nie swem nie, the modal verb kan expresses ability, the particle glo marks the whole thing as hearsay, and the negation bracket nie ... nie wraps around them both. Three systems, one clause, no conflict — each occupies its own slot. (For the discourse and common-ground side of particles like mos, tog and darem, see the discourse markers overview and the page on mos; this page deliberately stays on the grammar of the verb-vs-particle split rather than their pragmatics.)
Common mistakes
❌ Hy glo siek. (meaning 'he's apparently sick')
Incorrect — the particle glo needs a real verb to attach to; there's no verb here.
✅ Hy is glo siek.
He's apparently sick.
❌ Sy seker het vergeet.
Incorrect — the particle seker can't take the verb slot; it goes in the middle field after the auxiliary.
✅ Sy het seker vergeet.
She probably forgot.
❌ Hy het geglo gewen. (trying to put 'apparently' in the past)
Incorrect — the particle glo never inflects; only the real verb carries tense.
✅ Hy het glo gewen.
He apparently won.
❌ Ek glo hy het glo gewen. (mixing both glo's clumsily)
Confusing — use the verb glo to commit, or the particle glo to report, not both for one claim.
✅ Hy het glo gewen.
He apparently won.
Key takeaways
- Modal verbs (kan, moet, mag, wil, sal) are real verbs: they inflect (kan → kon), take a bare infinitive, and hold the verb slots; they express possibility, obligation and permission.
- Modal particles (seker, glo, mos, tog, darem) are invariant: no tense, no infinitive, no verb slot — they sit in the middle field and colour the clause with likelihood, evidentiality or attitude.
- The diagnostic test is the past tense: a verb moves into it (moet → moes); a particle can't move at all.
- glo is two words spelt alike: the verb "to believe" (speaker commits) and the particle "apparently / reportedly" (speaker reports, uncommitted) — the latter is a reportative evidential with no one-word English match.
- The two systems stack: Jy moet seker eers vra — modal verb plus particle in one clause, each in its own slot.
Now practice Afrikaans
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Start learning Afrikaans→Related Topics
- Modal Meanings and NuancesB1 — The full semantic range of kan, mag, moet, wil, sal and behoort — including the can/may register split, idiomatic wil hê, and sal for present inference.
- Modal Particles and Discourse Markers: OverviewB1 — Little words like mos, tog, sommer and darem carry the conversational glue of Afrikaans — they add speaker attitude without changing the literal meaning.
- The Particle mos: 'as you know'B1 — How the high-frequency particle mos marks information as shared common ground, softening an assertion into a reminder.