Die spieëlskrif is vreemd.

to be

Breakdown of Die spieëlskrif is vreemd.

• vreemd: strange
• die spieëlskrif: mirror writing

Questions & Answers about Die spieëlskrif is vreemd.

What does die mean here, and how is it pronounced?

Die is the definite article, equivalent to the.

A useful thing to know:

• It is pronounced roughly dee
• It is not pronounced like the English word die

Also, Afrikaans uses die for both singular and plural nouns, so the article itself does not tell you the number.

Why is spieëlskrif written as one word?

Afrikaans very often forms compound nouns by joining words together.

So:

• spieël = mirror
• skrif = writing, script, handwriting

Together, spieëlskrif means mirror writing or mirror script as a single concept. Writing it as one word is normal in Afrikaans.

What does the ë in spieëlskrif do?

The ë shows that the vowels are pronounced in separate syllables rather than blending together.

So spieël is pronounced in two parts, roughly:

• spie-ël
• approximately SPEE-uhl

Without the diaeresis, a learner might wrongly try to compress the vowels too much. The ë helps signal the correct pronunciation.