Hy het 'n graad.

Het is the present-tense form of hê meaning to have.

In Afrikaans, this verb does not change for different persons the way English does:

• ek het = I have
• jy het = you have
• hy het = he has
• ons het = we have

So Hy het ... is simply the normal way to say He has ...

'n is the Afrikaans indefinite article, the equivalent of English a/an.

So:

• 'n graad = a degree

Unlike English, Afrikaans does not switch between a and an. It is always just 'n.

That is simply the standard spelling of the Afrikaans indefinite article: 'n.

A few useful points:

• it is always written with the apostrophe
• it is normally written in lowercase, even if it appears at the beginning of a sentence
• in full capitals, it becomes 'N

So the apostrophe is not optional; it is part of the word.

It is usually pronounced like a very short, unstressed uh sound, similar to the a in English about.

So in natural speech, Hy het 'n graad sounds roughly like:

həi het ə khraht

The n is usually not pronounced as a full English n sound.

No. This sentence uses the basic Afrikaans main-clause order:

• Hy = subject
• het = verb
• 'n graad = object

So it follows the same basic pattern as English: He has a degree.

Hy is the subject pronoun meaning he.

It is used when he is the one doing or having something.

Compare:

• Hy het 'n graad. = He has a degree.
• Ek sien hom. = I see him.

So hy is the subject form, while hom is the object form.

Graad is pronounced roughly like khraht.

A few pronunciation notes:

• gr- begins with the Afrikaans g, which is usually a guttural sound, not the English g in go
• aa is a long vowel
• the final d is often pronounced more like a t sound in everyday speech

So an English speaker should not pronounce it like grade.

Not always. Graad can have different meanings depending on context, including:

• an academic degree
• a degree of temperature
• a degree of angle
• sometimes grade in certain contexts

So learners often need context to know exactly which meaning is intended. In this sentence, the intended meaning is the one already given to you.

No. Afrikaans does not have grammatical gender in the way languages like German do, and 'n does not change for masculine, feminine, or neuter nouns.

That makes this easy:

• 'n man = a man
• 'n vrou = a woman
• 'n kind = a child
• 'n graad = a degree

The article stays the same.