Die vrees bly.

Die is the Afrikaans definite article, so it usually means the.

A useful thing to remember is that Afrikaans does not change the article for gender. So unlike languages that have different words for masculine, feminine, or neuter nouns, Afrikaans just uses die.

It is also used for plural nouns, so die by itself does not tell you whether the noun is singular or plural. You understand that from the noun form and the context.

A rough English-friendly pronunciation is:

dee frees blay

A few notes:

• die is pronounced like dee, not like the English verb die
• vrees sounds roughly like frees
• bly sounds roughly like blay

If you want a more Afrikaans-like sound, the vowels are a bit different from English, but dee frees blay is a good beginner approximation.

Here, vrees is a noun.

You can tell because it comes after the article die:

• die vrees = the fear

That said, vrees can also be a verb in Afrikaans:

• Ek vrees dit = I fear it

So vrees is one of those words whose role depends on the sentence. In Die vrees bly, it is clearly a noun.

In this sentence, bly means remains or stays.

Common meanings of bly include:

• stay
• remain
• sometimes live/reside, depending on context

With an abstract noun like vrees, the most natural English meaning is usually remains:

• Die vrees bly = The fear remains

Because bly is already the main verb.

In English, learners may expect something like The fear is remaining, but Afrikaans does not need an extra is here. The sentence is complete with just one finite verb:

• Die vrees bly

So bly is doing the work of remains/stays all by itself.

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

subject + verb

So:

• Die vrees = subject
• bly = verb

Afrikaans is often described as a verb-second language in main clauses. In this sentence, the subject comes first, so the verb naturally comes second:

• Die vrees bly

If you started with some other element, the verb would still usually stay in second position.

In the present tense, no. Afrikaans verbs are much simpler than English verbs in this way.

You use bly with different subjects without changing its form:

• Ek bly
• Jy bly
• Hy bly
• Ons bly
• Hulle bly

So Afrikaans does not do something like English I remain but he remains. The verb form stays the same.

Here are the most useful versions:

• Present: Die vrees bly = the fear remains
• Past: Die vrees het gebly = the fear remained
• Future: Die vrees sal bly = the fear will remain

So:

• past often uses het + ge- form
• future often uses sal + infinitive

Because Afrikaans can use the definite article with abstract nouns when the speaker means a particular or understood instance of that idea.

So die vrees can mean:

• a specific fear already known in the conversation
• fear as a present, tangible force in the situation

English sometimes uses the in the same way, but not always in exactly the same contexts. So article use may not match English perfectly every time.

You say:

Die vrees bly nie.

This means The fear does not remain.

A helpful point: Afrikaans is famous for double negation, but in a very short sentence like this, you only see one nie because it is already in the final position where the negative marker belongs.

Compare:

• Die vrees bly nie.
• Die vrees bly nie lank nie. = The fear does not remain long.

In the second example, you can see the more familiar two-part negative pattern.

The plural is usually vrese.

So:

• die vrees = the fear
• die vrese = the fears

Then the sentence becomes:

• Die vrese bly = The fears remain

Notice that die stays the same, whether the noun is singular or plural.