Questions & Answers about Hulle klap hande en dans.
Why does hulle mean they here?
In this sentence, hulle is the Afrikaans subject pronoun meaning they.
A few useful notes:
- hulle = they / them
- Afrikaans does not change the form depending on subject position the way English does.
- So hulle can mean both they and them, depending on the sentence.
Here, because it comes before the verb, it is clearly the subject: They clap hands and dance.
Why is it klap and not a different verb form for they, like in English they clap?
Afrikaans verbs usually do not change form depending on the subject.
So:
- Ek klap = I clap
- Jy klap = you clap
- Hy klap = he claps
- Hulle klap = they clap
Unlike English, Afrikaans does not add an -s for he/she/it in the present tense. The verb usually stays the same.
That makes Afrikaans verb conjugation much simpler than English.
What exactly does klap mean here?