Die instapkaart wys die vlugnommer.

Die is the Afrikaans definite article, equivalent to English the.

So in this sentence:

• Die instapkaart = the boarding pass
• die vlugnommer = the flight number

A useful thing for English speakers is that Afrikaans uses die for all nouns, regardless of gender. Unlike languages such as German or French, you do not have to learn different words for the depending on masculine, feminine, or neuter nouns.

Yes. In other contexts, die can also mean that/those as a demonstrative, depending on the sentence.

But in Die instapkaart wys die vlugnommer, both instances of die are simply the article the.

A learner tip:
When die comes directly before a noun like instapkaart or vlugnommer, it is very often just the.

Instapkaart is a compound noun, which is extremely common in Afrikaans.

It can be broken down like this:

• instap = boarding / getting in
• kaart = card / ticket

Together, instapkaart means boarding pass.

Afrikaans often joins words into a single compound where English may use two separate words. So English boarding pass becomes Afrikaans instapkaart.

This is very normal in Afrikaans, and learning to recognize compounds will help a lot.

This is another compound noun:

• vlug = flight
• nommer = number

So:

• vlugnommer = flight number

Again, Afrikaans prefers to combine these into one word. English often writes noun combinations as two words, while Afrikaans very often writes them as one compound.

Other similar examples:

• telefoonnommer = telephone number
• huisnommer = house number

This is standard Afrikaans main clause word order:

• Subject: Die instapkaart
• Verb: wys
• Object: die vlugnommer

So it follows the basic pattern:

subject + verb + object

That is very similar to English:

• The boarding pass
  • shows
    • the flight number

Afrikaans main clauses usually place the finite verb in the second position, and in a simple statement like this, that gives you the same basic order English uses.

Wys usually means shows or indicates.

In this sentence, it means the boarding pass shows the flight number.

Depending on context, wys can also mean point out, demonstrate, or direct/show someone where something is.

Examples:

• Hy wys die pad. = He shows the way.
• Die skerm wys die tyd. = The screen shows the time.

So here, wys is a very natural verb for something displaying information.

Afrikaans does not use do/does the way English does in ordinary positive statements.

English:

• The boarding pass shows the flight number.

Afrikaans:

• Die instapkaart wys die vlugnommer.

There is no extra helping verb like does here. The main verb wys carries the meaning by itself.

This makes many Afrikaans present-tense sentences feel simpler than English ones.

No. One very helpful feature of Afrikaans is that verbs usually do not change much for person or number in the present tense.

For example:

• Ek wys = I show
• Jy wys = you show
• Hy wys = he shows
• Ons wys = we show

So unlike English, where you get show but shows, Afrikaans just keeps wys.

That is why Die instapkaart wys does not need a special verb ending beyond the normal form.

Wys is pronounced roughly like English vace or face with a v-sound at the beginning, depending on accent and how closely you approximate it.

A few pronunciation notes:

• w in Afrikaans is usually like English v
• y in Afrikaans is often like the Dutch ij sound, not like English y
• s is just s

So wys does not sound like English wise.

If you are learning pronunciation, it is best to listen to native audio, because the Afrikaans y sound can be unfamiliar to English speakers.

The g in Afrikaans is usually a throaty sound, similar to the ch in Scottish loch or German Bach.

So vlug is not pronounced with a hard English g as in go.

For English speakers, this sound can take practice. It is produced farther back in the mouth or throat.

A rough learner-friendly approximation is better than avoiding the sound completely. Native speakers will usually still understand you.

Afrikaans often expresses this kind of meaning with a compound noun instead of a possessive structure.

So rather than something equivalent to:

• the number of the flight
• the flight’s number

Afrikaans simply uses:

• vlugnommer

This is shorter and more natural in many everyday contexts.

English does this too sometimes:

• phone number
• house number
• flight number

So in this case, Afrikaans and English are actually quite similar in meaning, even if Afrikaans is especially fond of compounds.

Usually, instapkaart is the standard word for boarding pass.

Kaartjie often means ticket and can sound smaller or more like a ticket stub, depending on context. It is not the usual word in this exact expression.

So if you want to say boarding pass, instapkaart is the safest and most idiomatic choice.

Yes, depending on context. Afrikaans has more than one natural way to express the idea.

For example, people might also say something like:

• Op die instapkaart is die vlugnommer.
• Die vlugnommer staan op die instapkaart.

These can sound slightly different in nuance:

• wys emphasizes that the boarding pass shows/displays the information
• staan op emphasizes that the information is written/printed on it

But your original sentence, Die instapkaart wys die vlugnommer, is perfectly natural and clear.

Afrikaans nouns do not work with grammatical gender in the same way as many other European languages.

That is why both nouns simply take die:

• die instapkaart
• die vlugnommer

For an English speaker, this is good news: you do not need to memorize whether a noun is masculine, feminine, or neuter in order to choose the article.

The exact plural depends on the noun.

Likely plurals here are:

• instapkaarte = boarding passes
• vlugnommers = flight numbers

So you could get:

• Die instapkaarte wys die vlugnommers.

A useful thing to notice is that die still stays die in the plural:

• die instapkaart = the boarding pass
• die instapkaarte = the boarding passes

So again, Afrikaans keeps things fairly simple.

Yes. Wys here is in the present tense.

Afrikaans often uses the simple present in places where English also uses the simple present:

• Die instapkaart wys die vlugnommer.
• The boarding pass shows the flight number.

Afrikaans verb forms are generally much less complicated than English verb systems, so the tense marking is usually easier to learn.