Die truspieël is skoon.

to be

Breakdown of Die truspieël is skoon.

• skoon: clean
• die truspieël: rear-view mirror

Questions & Answers about Die truspieël is skoon.

Is die pronounced like the English word die?

No. In Afrikaans, die is usually pronounced roughly like dee.

So in this sentence, Die truspieël is skoon, the first word does not sound like English die.

What does die mean here?

Here, die means the.

A useful thing to remember is that Afrikaans uses die as the definite article for:

• singular nouns
• plural nouns
• all grammatical genders

So unlike languages such as German or Dutch, you do not have to learn different forms of the for masculine, feminine, or neuter nouns.

Why is Die capitalized?

It is capitalized only because it is the first word in the sentence.

Afrikaans does not capitalize all nouns the way German does. So truspieël stays lowercase unless there is some special reason to capitalize it.

What exactly does truspieël mean?

Truspieël means rear-view mirror.

It is a compound noun, and compound nouns are very common in Afrikaans. Instead of using several separate words, Afrikaans often combines them into one word.

So one important lesson here is:

• English: rear-view mirror
• Afrikaans: truspieël