Sy maak die album oop.

Because oopmaak is a separable verb in Afrikaans.

The full verb is oopmaak = to open, but in a normal main clause it splits:

• Sy maak die album oop. = She opens the album.

So:

• maak is the conjugated part
• oop moves to the end

This is very common in Afrikaans with separable verbs.

Compare:

• Ek maak die deur oop. = I open the door.
• Hy sit die lig aan. = He switches the light on.

Yes, very often.

Afrikaans commonly uses oopmaak for opening something physical, such as:

• a door
• a window
• a book
• an album

So Sy maak die album oop is a very natural sentence.

You can think of it literally as she makes the album open, but in real usage it simply means she opens the album.

Here sy means she.

In Afrikaans, sy can also mean her, depending on the sentence, so context matters.

In this sentence:

• Sy is the subject
• so it means she

Examples:

• Sy lees. = She reads.
• Ek sien sy boek. = I see his book.
• Ek sien haar. = I see her.

A learner should be careful, because Afrikaans pronouns do not always match English in a one-to-one way.

die is the definite article in Afrikaans, meaning the.

So:

• die album = the album

One nice thing for English speakers is that Afrikaans uses die for all nouns:

• no grammatical gender
• no separate forms like the masculine, the feminine, or the neuter

Examples:

• die man = the man
• die vrou = the woman
• die kind = the child
• die album = the album

No. Afrikaans nouns do not have grammatical gender the way many European languages do.

So album is not masculine, feminine, or neuter in the grammatical sense. You do not need to change the article based on gender.

That is why it is simply:

• die album

This is much simpler than in languages where you have to learn a noun together with its gender.

Afrikaans verbs are much simpler than English verbs.

The verb maak stays the same with different subjects in the present tense:

• Ek maak = I make / I open
• Jy maak = you make / you open
• Hy maak = he makes / he opens
• Sy maak = she makes / she opens
• Ons maak = we make / we open

So unlike English, Afrikaans does not add -s for he/she/it in the present tense.

That is why:

• Sy maak die album oop not something like Sy makes ...

Yes, album is basically the same word and has the same meaning.

In Afrikaans it can refer to an album such as:

• a photo album
• a music album
• a collection book, depending on context

In this sentence, many learners will naturally understand it as a physical album, especially because someone is opening it.

You would use the full separable verb together:

• om die album oop te maak = to open the album

Notice what happens:

• in a normal sentence: Sy maak die album oop
• in the infinitive: oop te maak

So the parts are still separated, but now they appear around te maak.

This pattern is very common in Afrikaans.

A very common past construction in Afrikaans uses het + past participle.

With a separable verb like oopmaak, the past participle is usually oopgemaak.

So:

• Sy het die album oopgemaak. = She opened the album.

Compare:

• present: Sy maak die album oop.
• past: Sy het die album oopgemaak.

A rough guide for an English speaker:

• Sy sounds somewhat like say but with an Afrikaans vowel that may sound slightly different depending on accent.
• maak sounds like mahk
• die in standard Afrikaans is usually like dee
• album is close to English album, though the vowels may be a bit different
• oop sounds like ohp

A rough English-style approximation:

• Say mahk dee al-bum ohp

But it is best to listen to native audio, especially for:

• sy
• die
• the long vowel in maak

Yes. In Afrikaans, yes/no questions usually use verb-first word order.

Statement:

• Sy maak die album oop. = She opens the album.

Question:

• Maak sy die album oop? = Is she opening the album? / Does she open the album?

So the conjugated verb maak moves to the front.

Yes. oop can mean open as an adjective.

Examples:

• Die deur is oop. = The door is open.
• Die boek is oop. = The book is open.

But in your sentence, oop is not just an adjective standing alone. It is part of the separable verb oopmaak:

• Sy maak die album oop. = She opens the album.

So learners should notice the difference between:

• is oop = is open
• maak oop = opens

The sentence follows the usual Afrikaans main-clause pattern:

• Sy = subject
• maak = finite verb
• die album = object
• oop = separated particle

So the structure is:

Subject + verb + object + particle

That is why the sentence looks like:

• Sy maak die album oop.

This word order is very normal in Afrikaans main clauses with separable verbs.