Hy lees die vers.

Hy is the Afrikaans subject pronoun meaning he.

A few common pronouns are:

• ek = I
• jy = you
• hy = he
• sy = she
• ons = we
• hulle = they

So in Hy lees die vers, Hy is simply the subject: he.

Afrikaans verbs usually do not change form according to the subject the way English verbs do.

In English, you say:

• I read
• you read
• he reads

In Afrikaans, it stays the same:

• ek lees
• jy lees
• hy lees

So lees works with ek, jy, hy, and so on, without adding an extra ending like English -s.

It can cover all of those, depending on context.

Afrikaans often uses the simple present where English might use either the simple present or the progressive:

• Hy lees = he reads / he is reading

So Hy lees die vers can mean either:

• He reads the verse
• He is reading the verse

The surrounding context tells you which is most natural.

Here, die is the definite article, meaning the.

So:

• die vers = the verse

One useful thing to remember is that Afrikaans uses die for the in general, without changing for gender.

It can also be plural.

For example:

• die vers = the verse
• die verse = the verses

So unlike English, where number is not shown by the article either, Afrikaans also keeps die the same. You tell singular or plural mainly from the noun itself and the context.

Vers usually means verse, and depending on context it can refer to:

• a verse of a poem
• a verse from a song
• a verse from scripture

In some contexts, learners may also see it associated with poetry more generally, but the basic meaning is verse.

This is the normal basic word order for a main clause in Afrikaans:

subject + verb + object

So:

• Hy = subject
• lees = verb
• die vers = object

This is very similar to standard English word order:

• He reads the verse

Usually, no—not if you mean the verse.

If you are talking about a specific verse, die is needed:

• Hy lees die vers = He reads the verse

Without an article, the phrase would sound different and usually would not be the normal way to say this. Afrikaans often uses an article where English does too.

Not in the way languages like German or Dutch do.

In this sentence, die does not change for masculine or feminine nouns. You do not need to learn different forms of the depending on noun gender here.

That makes sentences like this simpler for English speakers:

• die man = the man
• die vrou = the woman
• die vers = the verse

The article stays die.

A very common past-tense pattern in Afrikaans uses het + ge-.

So Hy lees die vers becomes:

• Hy het die vers gelees. = He read the verse / He has read the verse.

Notice two things:

• lees becomes gelees
• the helping verb het is added

This is a very important pattern in Afrikaans.

In a main question, Afrikaans normally puts the verb first:

• Lees hy die vers? = Is he reading the verse? / Does he read the verse?

So the statement:

• Hy lees die vers.

becomes the yes/no question:

• Lees hy die vers?

No. It is capitalized here only because it is the first word of the sentence.

If it appeared in the middle of a sentence, it would normally be:

• hy

So the capitalization rule is the same basic idea as in English sentence-initial capitalization.