Sy verkondig die besluit.

Here Sy means she.

Afrikaans sy can sometimes mean his in other contexts, but in this sentence it is clearly the subject pronoun because it comes before the verb: Sy verkondig ...

Also, it is capitalized only because it is the first word of the sentence.

In Afrikaans, verbs usually do not change according to the subject the way they do in English.

So you get:

• Ek verkondig — I proclaim
• Jy verkondig — you proclaim
• Sy verkondig — she proclaims
• Hulle verkondig — they proclaim

Unlike English, there is no special -s ending for he/she/it in the present tense.

Yes, in this sentence the word order is the straightforward pattern:

Subject + Verb + Object

So:

• Sy = subject
• verkondig = verb
• die besluit = object

That makes it very similar to English word order in a basic statement.

Die here means the.

A useful thing to know is that Afrikaans uses die as the definite article for:

• singular nouns
• plural nouns
• all grammatical genders

So Afrikaans does not have different forms like English learners might expect from languages such as German or Dutch. It is simply die.

Here besluit is a noun, meaning decision.

You can tell because it follows the article die:

• die besluit = the decision

Afrikaans besluit can also be a verb meaning decide, but in this sentence it is definitely a noun.

Verkondig is a fairly formal word. It usually means something like:

• proclaim
• announce
• declare publicly

So it sounds more formal or official than everyday speaking verbs like sê (say).

In this sentence, it suggests that she is making the decision known in a public, official, or emphatic way.

Yes. The simple present in Afrikaans can often cover meanings that English splits into:

• she proclaims
• she is proclaiming

The exact meaning depends on context.

If you want to be more explicitly progressive in Afrikaans, people often use a construction with besig om te, but the simple present is very common and natural.

You would usually use Afrikaans double negation:

Sy verkondig nie die besluit nie.

Afrikaans normally places:

• one nie after the verb or verbal part
• another nie at the end of the clause

That double nie ... nie pattern is one of the most important features of Afrikaans negation.

In a yes/no question, Afrikaans usually puts the verb first:

Verkondig sy die besluit?

So the order becomes:

Verb + Subject + Object

That is a very common way to form simple questions in Afrikaans.

A rough English-friendly guide is:

fer-KON-dekh or fer-KON-dikh

A few helpful points:

• ver- is usually unstressed
• the stress falls on -kon-
• the final g is not a hard English g as in go; it is the typical Afrikaans guttural sound

The exact sound of g can take practice, especially for English speakers.

Yes, but Afrikaans keeps the finite verb in the second position in main clauses.

For example:

• Sy verkondig die besluit.
• Vandag verkondig sy die besluit.

Notice that when Vandag comes first, the verb verkondig still stays in second position, and the subject sy moves after it.

This is an important Afrikaans word-order rule.