Die digter skryf die gedig.

The poet writes the poem.

Breakdown of Die digter skryf die gedig.

• skryf: to write
• die gedig: the poem
• die digter: poet

Questions & Answers about Die digter skryf die gedig.

Why is die used twice in Die digter skryf die gedig?

Because Afrikaans uses die as the definite article for both singular and plural nouns, and for all genders. It corresponds to English the.

So in this sentence:

• die digter = the poet
• die gedig = the poem

Unlike English, Afrikaans does not have separate forms like the for one noun and something else for another. It is simply die each time.

Does Afrikaans have grammatical gender, like de, het, or der/die/das in other Germanic languages?

No, not in the way languages like Dutch or German do. Afrikaans has largely lost grammatical gender in its article system.

That is why you can use die with both digter and gedig without needing to learn different article genders.

This makes Afrikaans simpler than many related languages in this area.

Why doesn’t skryf change form for he/she/it like English writes?

Afrikaans verbs usually do not change according to the subject in the present tense.

So:

• ek skryf = I write
• jy skryf = you write
• hy skryf = he writes
• ons skryf = we write

The verb stays skryf.

This is one of the big differences from English, where you have I write but he writes.