Dit is nie soseer die koffieboon nie, maar die maalgraad.

Afrikaans commonly uses double negation. In a basic negative sentence, you often place one nie after the part being negated and another nie near the end of the clause.

So in:

Dit is nie soseer die koffieboon nie, maar die maalgraad.

the pattern is:

• nie soseer ... nie = not so much ...
• followed by maar = but rather

This is a very common Afrikaans structure, even though it can look strange to an English speaker at first.

This pattern means:

not so much X, but Y
or
it is less about X and more about Y

So:

Dit is nie soseer die koffieboon nie, maar die maalgraad.

means something like:

It’s not so much the coffee bean, but the grind size.

The speaker is correcting or refining the focus: the real issue is the grind size, not primarily the coffee bean.

Soseer is used mainly in the expression nie soseer ... nie.

In this structure, it means something like:

• so much
• to such an extent
• primarily

So nie soseer X nie means:

• not so much X
• not primarily X

On its own, soseer is not one of the first Afrikaans words learners usually use, but the full expression nie soseer ... nie is worth learning as a set phrase.

Dit is means It is.

In Afrikaans, just like in English, you can use it is to introduce a statement or explanation:

• Dit is die probleem. = It is the problem.
• Dit is nie die boon nie, maar die maalgraad. = It is not the bean, but the grind size.

Here, Dit is sets up the contrast that follows. It is a very natural way to frame the sentence.

Die is the definite article in Afrikaans, meaning the.

So:

• die koffieboon = the coffee bean
• die maalgraad = the grind size / grind setting

It appears before both nouns because both are definite noun phrases. Afrikaans does not change die for gender, so the same article is used for masculine, feminine, and neuter nouns.

Yes. Afrikaans, like Dutch and German, often forms compound nouns as a single written word.

So:

• koffie = coffee
• boon = bean
• koffieboon = coffee bean

This is completely normal in Afrikaans. English sometimes writes similar combinations as two words, but Afrikaans often joins them.

Maalgraad is also a compound noun:

• maal = grind / to grind
• graad = degree / grade / level

So maalgraad means the degree of grinding, usually translated naturally as:

• grind size
• grind setting
• coarseness/fineness of the grind

In a coffee context, this refers to how coarse or fine the coffee has been ground.

Afrikaans, like English, often leaves out repeated words when the meaning is clear.

Fuller version:

Dit is nie soseer die koffieboon nie, maar dit is die maalgraad.

But that sounds unnecessarily repetitive. So Afrikaans normally says:

Dit is nie soseer die koffieboon nie, maar die maalgraad.

English does the same:

• It’s not so much the bean, but the grind size.

The verb is is understood in the second part.

Yes. Maar usually means but.

In this sentence it introduces a contrast:

• not X,
• maar Y

So it works like English but in:

not so much the coffee bean, but the grind size

It can also sometimes mean just / only in other contexts, but here it is clearly the contrastive but.

Yes, that is close to the structure of the Afrikaans sentence.

A more natural English translation would usually be:

• It’s not so much the coffee bean, but the grind size.
• It’s less the coffee bean and more the grind size.
• The issue is not so much the bean as the grind size.

So a literal translation helps you see the grammar, while a natural translation helps you sound normal in English.

Yes, very much. The sentence is contrastive and slightly corrective.

It suggests that someone may think the important factor is the coffee bean, but the speaker wants to redirect attention to the grind size.

So the effect is something like:

• The bean isn’t really the main issue. The grind size is.

That is exactly the kind of nuance that nie soseer ... nie, maar ... expresses well.

Yes. A fuller version might be:

Dit gaan nie soseer oor die koffieboon nie, maar oor die maalgraad.

This means:

It’s not so much about the coffee bean, but about the grind size.

That version makes the relationship even clearer by adding gaan oor = be about.

The original sentence is shorter and punchier, but both are natural.

A rough English-friendly guide is:

nee suh-SEER dee KAW-fee-bohn nee, maar dee MAAL-graht

A few notes:

• nie sounds roughly like nee
• soseer has stress on the second part: so-SEER
• die in Afrikaans sounds like dee, not like English die
• koffie is roughly KAW-fee
• boon is like bohn
• maal is like mahl
• graad ends with a broad a sound, roughly graht

Exact pronunciation varies by accent, but this will get you close.