Ons het destyds daar gewoon.

Because Afrikaans usually uses the perfect tense to talk about past actions like this.

The pattern is:

subject + het + other information + past participle

So:

• Ons = we
• het = have
• destyds = at that time / back then
• daar = there
• gewoon = lived

The conjugated verb het comes early in the sentence, and the main verb in participle form, gewoon, goes to the end.

So the structure is very normal Afrikaans word order for a past statement.

Het is the auxiliary verb used to form the perfect tense in Afrikaans, much like have in English.

So Ons het ... gewoon literally matches something like We have lived ..., but in normal English it is usually translated as We lived ... in this context.

Afrikaans often prefers this het + past participle structure where English might simply use the past tense.

Destyds means at that time, in those days, or back then.

It refers to a past period that both speaker and listener either know about or can understand from context.

It is a bit more specific and literary than just toe in some situations. It gives the feeling of back in those days or at that particular time in the past.

Here daar means there, referring to a place.

In this sentence it tells you where the people lived:

• Ons het daar gewoon = We lived there

So daar is a location word here, not a filler word.

Yes, this is a very common learner question.

In this sentence, gewoon is the past participle of woon, which means to live or reside.

So here:

• woon = live
• gewoon = lived

But gewoon can also be a separate word with other meanings in other contexts, such as:

• ordinary / normal
• sometimes just / simply in informal speech

So the meaning depends on context.

In Ons het destyds daar gewoon, it clearly means lived, because it follows het and sits in the usual participle position at the end.

Many Afrikaans verbs form the past participle with ge-.

So:

• werk → gewerk
• praat → gepraat
• woon → gewoon

That is why woon becomes gewoon after het.

This is a very common pattern in Afrikaans.

Yes, you could.

Both Ons het destyds daar gewoon and Ons het daar destyds gewoon are possible. The difference is mainly one of focus or rhythm.

• Ons het destyds daar gewoon puts slightly more emphasis on back then
• Ons het daar destyds gewoon may feel like the place there is introduced a little earlier

Afrikaans allows some flexibility with adverbs like destyds and daar, as long as the sentence stays clear and the participle gewoon remains at the end.

Yes, very much so.

Afrikaans often uses the perfect tense where English would simply use the simple past.

So English says:

• We lived there

Afrikaans very naturally says:

• Ons het daar gewoon

This is one of the first big differences English speakers notice when learning Afrikaans.

Yes.

Woon is the normal everyday verb for live somewhere in the sense of reside.

So:

• Ek woon in Kaapstad = I live in Cape Town
• Ons het daar gewoon = We lived there

It does not mean live in the broader sense of be alive. For that, Afrikaans uses lewe.

So:

• Ek leef or Ek is lewendig relates to being alive
• Ek woon in Pretoria relates to where you live

If you move Destyds to the front, the verb must still stay in second position:

Destyds het ons daar gewoon.

That means exactly the same thing, but now Destyds is more strongly emphasized.

This is a very common Afrikaans pattern:

• Ons het destyds daar gewoon.
• Destyds het ons daar gewoon.

Both are correct. The second one highlights the time expression more strongly.

They can overlap, but they are not always identical.

• toe often means then and is very common in storytelling
• destyds means back then / in those days / at that time

So destyds often feels a little more reflective or tied to a period in the past.

For example:

• Toe het ons daar gewoon = Then we lived there
• Destyds het ons daar gewoon = Back then / In those days we lived there

The second one often sounds a bit more like recalling an earlier stage of life.

A broad pronunciation guide would be something like:

• Ons → like ons with a short vowel
• het → like het with a short e
• destyds → roughly de-STAYTS
• daar → like daar, similar to there but not the same vowel
• gewoon → roughly khuh-VOAN or guh-VOAN, depending on accent

A few notes:

• The g in Afrikaans is usually a throaty sound, not an English g
• w in gewoon sounds like English v
• aa in daar is a long vowel

Exact pronunciation varies by region and accent, but those points will help you sound much closer to natural Afrikaans.