Sy hoef nie die grootte-etiket te lees nie.

Here Sy means she.

Afrikaans uses:

• sy = she as a subject pronoun
• haar = her

So in Sy hoef nie die grootte-etiket te lees nie, Sy is the subject of the sentence, just like she in English.

A small extra point: sy can also mean his in other contexts, but not here. The sentence structure makes it clear that this Sy means she.

Here hoef means need to or have to, but in a negative structure.

So Sy hoef nie ... nie means:

• She does not need to ...
• She doesn't have to ...

It expresses lack of necessity, not prohibition.

Because Afrikaans normally uses a double negative.

A very common pattern is:

subject + verb + nie + rest of sentence + nie

So:

• Sy hoef nie die grootte-etiket te lees nie

The first nie starts the negation, and the second nie closes it.

This is one of the most important sentence patterns in Afrikaans. To an English speaker it may feel repetitive, but in standard Afrikaans it is normal.

This is an important difference.

• hoef nie ... nie = does not need to, doesn't have to
• moet nie ... nie = must not, should not

So:

• Sy hoef nie die grootte-etiket te lees nie
  = She does not need to read the size label.

• Sy moet nie die grootte-etiket lees nie
  = She must not read the size label.

The first sentence removes an obligation.
The second sentence gives a prohibition or warning.

Because lees is the infinitive here, and after hoef, Afrikaans normally uses te + infinitive.

So:

• te lees = to read

This is similar to English to read.

Compare:

• Sy hoef nie te lees nie = She does not need to read

A useful thing to remember is that not all Afrikaans verb helpers behave the same way:

• kan, wil, moet usually take a bare infinitive
• hoef typically takes te + infinitive

Because hoef is the finite verb, and the infinitive lees is placed later in the clause.

Afrikaans often puts:

• the finite verb early in the sentence
• the infinitive near the end

So the structure is roughly:

Sy | hoef | nie | die grootte-etiket | te lees | nie

This is a normal Afrikaans word order pattern.

grootte-etiket is a compound noun meaning size label or size tag.

It is made up of:

• grootte = size
• etiket = label, tag

So it refers to the label that tells you the clothing size, for example S, M, L, or a numbered size.

The hyphen helps with spelling and readability in the compound.

Afrikaans often forms compounds as one unit, but a hyphen is used in certain cases. Here it helps separate the two parts clearly:

• grootte
• etiket

Without the hyphen, the word would be harder to read because the two parts meet at the same vowel sound area.

So grootte-etiket is the standard written form.

Die means the.

So:

• die grootte-etiket = the size label

Afrikaans die is much simpler than English articles in some ways:

• it does not change for grammatical gender
• it is used for both singular and plural definite nouns

Here it is simply the definite article before the noun.

Because Afrikaans verbs usually do not change according to the subject the way English verbs sometimes do.

In English:

• I read
• she reads

In Afrikaans:

• ek lees
• jy lees
• sy lees
• hulle lees

The verb stays the same. That is why you get Sy ... lees, not a special form equivalent to English reads.

Yes, it is natural and grammatically normal.

It sounds like something you might say when:

• reading the label is unnecessary
• she already knows the size
• someone is telling another person not to bother checking it

So the sentence is a good example of:

• the Afrikaans double negative
• hoef nie ... nie for does not need to
• normal infinitive word order with te lees