Die gemeente help die gemeenskap.

The congregation helps the community.

Breakdown of Die gemeente help die gemeenskap.

• help: to help
• die gemeenskap: the community
• die gemeente: congregation; local church community

Questions & Answers about Die gemeente help die gemeenskap.

Why does die appear twice?

Because die is the Afrikaans definite article, meaning the. Afrikaans uses die for all nouns, regardless of gender, and for both singular and plural in most everyday cases. So:

• die gemeente = the congregation / the municipality
• die gemeenskap = the community

So the sentence literally has the before both the subject and the object, just like English can.

Is the word order the same as in English here?

Yes. This is a straightforward main clause with normal subject–verb–object order:

• Die gemeente = subject
• help = verb
• die gemeenskap = object

So it matches English very closely: The congregation helps the community.

Why is the verb just help and not changed to match the subject?

In Afrikaans, verbs usually do not change form according to the subject in the present tense. That is much simpler than English.

For example:

• Ek help = I help
• Jy help = you help
• Die gemeente help = the congregation helps

So even though English adds -s in helps, Afrikaans keeps the verb as help.

Does help mean the same thing as English help?