Hy breek die bord.

Hy means he. It is the Afrikaans subject pronoun for a male person.

In Hy breek die bord, hy is the person doing the action.

A few related pronouns:

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

In Afrikaans, verbs usually do not change according to the subject the way they do in English.

So you get:

• Ek breek = I break
• Jy breek = you break
• Hy breek = he breaks
• Ons breek = we break

In English, we say I break but he breaks. In Afrikaans, the verb stays breek.

Breek means break.

It can be used:

• transitively: to break something
  
  • Hy breek die bord = He breaks the plate
• sometimes intransitively in other contexts, depending on the sentence

In this sentence, it means that he is causing the plate to break.

Yes. Die is the definite article in Afrikaans, and it is used for both singular and plural nouns.

So:

• die bord = the plate
• die borde = the plates

Afrikaans does not have separate words like English the vs something else for plural. It is simply die.

This is the normal main clause word order in Afrikaans:

Subject + Verb + Object

So:

• Hy = subject
• breek = verb
• die bord = object

This is very similar to basic English word order:

• He breaks the plate

It can often be understood as he breaks the plate or he is breaking the plate, depending on context.

Afrikaans simple present tense can cover several meanings that English separates:

• general present
• present happening now
• sometimes near-future, depending on context

If you want to be very explicit about an ongoing action, Afrikaans can use a progressive construction, for example:

• Hy is besig om die bord te breek = He is busy breaking the plate / He is breaking the plate

But in ordinary simple sentences, Hy breek die bord is completely normal.

Bord usually means plate, but depending on context it can also mean things like board or sign in some expressions.

In this sentence, because of the context and the article die, die bord is understood as the plate.

Plural:

• bord = plate
• borde = plates

A simple learner-friendly guide would be:

• Hy: sounds roughly like hey or hay
• breek: roughly like brake
• die: roughly like dee
• bord: roughly like bort with a short o

A rough full approximation:

• Hay brake dee bort

This is only approximate, but it is close enough for a beginner.

Because the sentence uses the plate, not a plate.

Afrikaans has:

• die = the
• ’n = a / an

So compare:

• Hy breek die bord = He breaks the plate
• Hy breek ’n bord = He breaks a plate

A common past tense form is:

• Hy het die bord gebreek. = He broke the plate / He has broken the plate.

Notice the pattern:

• het is the auxiliary
• gebreek is the past participle

So the present:

• Hy breek die bord

becomes the past:

• Hy het die bord gebreek

Afrikaans normally uses double negation.

So:

• Hy breek die bord. = He breaks the plate.
• Hy breek nie die bord nie. = He does not break the plate.

This is a very important Afrikaans pattern:

• one nie after the verb
• another nie at the end of the clause

Yes. In most normal cases, the verb stays the same.

For example:

• Ek breek die bord. = I break the plate.
• Jy breek die bord. = You break the plate.
• Sy breek die bord. = She breaks the plate.
• Ons breek die bord. = We break the plate.

That is one of the nice things about Afrikaans grammar: verb conjugation is much simpler than in English.

Yes. It is a complete, grammatical, and natural sentence.

It is short and simple, but perfectly normal. It clearly has:

• a subject: Hy
• a verb: breek
• an object: die bord

So it works well as a basic example of standard Afrikaans sentence structure.