Hulle hoef nie juwele te bring nie.

Afrikaans usually makes a full negative with nie ... nie.

In Hulle hoef nie juwele te bring nie, the first nie comes after the finite verb hoef, and the second nie closes the sentence.

So the pattern is:

subject + verb + nie + rest + nie

This is one of the most important word-order patterns in Afrikaans.

Hoef means need to or have to, but it is most commonly used in negative sentences.

So:

• Hulle hoef nie ... nie = They do not need to ...
• Ek hoef nie te gaan nie = I do not need to go

In everyday Afrikaans, hoef is strongly associated with not needing to.

After hoef, Afrikaans normally uses te + infinitive.

So:

• hoef te bring = need to bring
• hoef nie te bring nie = do not need to bring

That is why you get:

Hulle hoef nie juwele te bring nie.

This is different from some other verbs like kan, wil, and moet, which do not usually take te before the infinitive.

For example:

• Hulle kan juwele bring.
• Hulle wil juwele bring.
• Hulle moet juwele bring.

But:

• Hulle hoef juwele te bring.
  (less common on its own, but grammatically possible in certain contexts)
• Hulle hoef nie juwele te bring nie.

Bring is the infinitive verb, meaning to bring.

Because it comes after te, it stays in its basic form:

• te bring
• te gaan
• te sien

Afrikaans verbs do not change as much as English verbs do, so bring stays bring.

In Afrikaans main clauses, the finite verb usually comes earlier in the sentence, while the infinitive often comes later.

Here:

• Hulle = subject
• hoef = finite verb
• nie = first negative marker
• juwele = object
• te bring = infinitive phrase
• nie = final negative marker

So the sentence structure is very natural Afrikaans word order.

Juwele is the plural of juweel.

It can mean:

• jewels
• jewelry / jewellery, depending on context

In this sentence, English often prefers jewelry/jewellery, even though Afrikaans uses the plural form juwele.

So a very natural translation is:

• They do not need to bring jewelry.

But They do not need to bring jewels can also be a more literal translation.

Because juwele is the direct object of bring.

In English, bring jewelry also does not need a preposition.
So the structure matches quite closely:

• bring jewelry
• bring juwele

The to in the English translation belongs with the verb need to bring, not with jewelry.

In this sentence, yes, hulle means they.

Afrikaans hulle can also mean them in other contexts, depending on sentence position and function.

For example:

• Hulle bring juwele. = They bring jewelry.
• Ek sien hulle. = I see them.

So here, because it comes at the start as the subject, it means they.

Not in the way English verbs do.

Afrikaans verbs generally do not change much according to the subject, so hoef stays the same:

• Ek hoef nie te gaan nie
• Jy hoef nie te gaan nie
• Hy hoef nie te gaan nie
• Ons hoef nie te gaan nie
• Hulle hoef nie te gaan nie

This is one reason Afrikaans verb systems often feel simpler than English ones.

Not if you want the same meaning.

There is an important difference:

• Hulle hoef nie juwele te bring nie = They do not need to bring jewelry
• Hulle moet nie juwele bring nie = They must not bring jewelry

So:

• hoef nie ... nie = lack of necessity
• moet nie ... nie = prohibition / instruction not to do something

That is a very important distinction.

In a normal Afrikaans negative sentence, the first nie usually comes after the finite verb or after the first major sentence element that should be negated in that standard structure.

Here the finite verb is hoef, so the sentence naturally becomes:

Hulle hoef nie juwele te bring nie.

That placement is standard and is the form learners should copy.

Yes. That is a more formal or slightly old-fashioned English equivalent of:

They do not need to bring jewelry.

So all of these are close in meaning:

• They do not need to bring jewelry.
• They don't need to bring jewelry.
• They need not bring jewelry.

A rough guide is:

Hulle hoef nie juwele te bring nie
HU-luh hoof nee yoo-VEE-luh tuh bring nee

A few notes:

• g in bring is not like the harsh Dutch g; here it is just the normal g sound in the spelling, though the final pronunciation may sound slightly different depending on accent.
• nie sounds like nee, not like English nigh.
• juwele is roughly yoo-VEE-luh.

This is only an approximation, but it can help you get started.