Hulle het ryk geword.

Afrikaans often uses the perfect tense to talk about past events. In this sentence:

• het = the auxiliary verb, like have/has
• geword = the past participle of word (become)

So Hulle het ryk geword literally looks like They have become rich, but in normal English it is often translated as They became rich or They got rich.

That is normal Afrikaans word order in a main clause with an auxiliary verb.

The pattern here is:

• Hulle = subject
• het = finite verb in second position
• ryk = complement
• geword = past participle at the end

So Afrikaans often works like this:

• Hulle het ryk geword.
• literally: They have rich become.

This final position for the participle is very common in Afrikaans.

• word = present tense, become
• geword = past participle, become / become(d) in a perfect construction

Compare:

• Hulle word ryk. = They are becoming rich.
• Hulle het ryk geword. = They became / have become rich.

So geword is the form used with het.

Because ryk is being used after the verb as a complement, not directly before a noun.

Here it describes what they became:

• Hulle het ryk geword. = They became rich.

In this kind of position, Afrikaans adjectives usually stay in their basic form. So ryk is exactly what you expect here.

It can match either in English, depending on context.

Afrikaans uses the perfect form very widely, often where English would simply use the simple past. So this sentence can mean:

• They became rich
• They got rich
• They have become rich

In many everyday contexts, They became rich is the most natural English translation.

Hulle usually means they or them, depending on context. In this sentence it is the subject, so it means they.

• Hulle het ryk geword. = They became rich.

Afrikaans does not change the pronoun form the way English does with they/them as much.

The meaning is different:

• Hulle was ryk. = They were rich.
• Hulle het ryk geword. = They became rich.

So:

• was ryk describes a state in the past
• het ryk geword describes a change into that state

In other words, geword adds the idea of becoming.

Yes. That is a very natural translation.

Depending on tone and context:

• They became rich = slightly more neutral/formal
• They got rich = very natural in everyday English

Both work well for Hulle het ryk geword.

Afrikaans normally uses double negation:

• Hulle het nie ryk geword nie.

That means They did not become rich.

The pattern is:

• nie after the finite verb phrase area
• another nie at the end of the clause

This is a very important Afrikaans feature.

A rough English-friendly guide is:

• Hulle ≈ HULL-uh
• het ≈ het
• ryk ≈ something like rake but with a different Afrikaans vowel
• geword ≈ khuh-VORT or guh-VORT, depending on accent

A few pronunciation notes:

• g in Afrikaans is often a throaty sound, not the English g
• ry has a vowel sound that does not match English exactly
• w in geword sounds like English v

So the sentence may sound quite different from what an English speaker first expects.

It is most commonly recognized as the past participle of word (become), as in this sentence.

You will also see word in passive constructions, for example:

• Die deur word oopgemaak. = The door is being opened.

But in Hulle het ryk geword, the meaning is clearly became/got. Here geword is not a passive marker; it means become.

Yes, often you can.

• Hulle het ryk geword
• Hulle het ryk geraak

Both can mean They became rich or They got rich.

Very roughly:

• word / geword = neutral become
• raak / geraak = often get/become, sometimes a bit more change-focused in everyday speech

In many contexts, both are acceptable, but geword is perfectly standard here.