Die polisie kom vroeg.

to come

Breakdown of Die polisie kom vroeg.

• vroeg: early
• die polisie: the police

Questions & Answers about Die polisie kom vroeg.

What does die mean here?

Die is the Afrikaans definite article, equivalent to English the.

A useful thing to remember is that Afrikaans uses die for:

• singular nouns
• plural nouns
• all grammatical genders

So unlike languages that have different words for the depending on gender or number, Afrikaans keeps it simple: die.

Also, in this sentence, die is just the article — not the English verb die.

Why is Die capitalized?

It is capitalized only because it is the first word of the sentence.

Normally, the article is written die with a lowercase d:

• die polisie
• die man
• die kinders

So if the phrase appeared in the middle of a sentence, you would usually write die polisie, not Die polisie.

Is polisie singular or plural?