Die newekarakter is belangrik.

Die is the definite article in Afrikaans, so here it means the.

Unlike English, Afrikaans uses die for:

• singular nouns: die newekarakter = the supporting character
• plural nouns: die karakters = the characters

So die does not change for gender or number.

Afrikaans often forms compound nouns by writing them as a single word.

So:

• newe = secondary / side / supporting
• karakter = character

Together, newekarakter means supporting character or secondary character.

This is very common in Afrikaans. English often uses two words where Afrikaans prefers one compound word.

Newekarakter is a noun. It is the subject of the sentence.

In Die newekarakter is belangrik, the structure is:

• Die newekarakter = the subject
• is = the verb
• belangrik = an adjective describing the subject

So the sentence follows a very familiar pattern: The supporting character is important.

Yes. Is is the Afrikaans present-tense form of to be, and it works very much like English is in this sentence.

Examples:

• Hy is moeg. = He is tired.
• Die boek is nuut. = The book is new.
• Die newekarakter is belangrik. = The supporting character is important.

Afrikaans verbs are generally much less complicated than English verbs, because they do not change much depending on the subject.

In this sentence, belangrik comes after is, so it is being used predicatively: it describes the subject after a linking verb.

In that position, Afrikaans adjectives usually stay in their basic form:

• Die newekarakter is belangrik.

Afrikaans adjectives sometimes do change when they come before a noun, but not usually after is.

Compare:

• Die karakter is belangrik. = The character is important.
• ’n Belangrike karakter = an important character.

So the unchanged form here is completely normal.

Here it should be belangrik, because it comes after is.

Use:

• belangrik after a linking verb:
  Die newekarakter is belangrik.
• belangrike before a noun:
  Die belangrike newekarakter... or ’n belangrike karakter...

So the sentence is correct as written.

Yes, in this simple statement the word order is very similar to English:

• Die newekarakter = subject
• is = verb
• belangrik = complement/adjective

So: Subject + verb + adjective

That makes this sentence very straightforward for an English speaker.

A helpful rough guide is:

NAY-vuh-kah-RAK-ter

A few notes:

• newe sounds roughly like nay-vuh
• karakter is similar to English character, but with Afrikaans sounds
• the r is usually more clearly pronounced than in many English accents

This is only an approximation, but it is a good starting point.

A rough pronunciation guide is:

buh-LUNG-rik

Notes:

• be- is usually a light unstressed sound
• lang has a vowel somewhat like the u in lung
• rik sounds close to rick

Again, this is an English-based approximation, not exact IPA.

Yes, depending on context, newekarakter can often be understood as:

• supporting character
• secondary character
• sometimes side character

If the meaning has already been given to you, follow that translation for your lesson, but it is useful to know that the word can overlap with several English expressions.

Yes. If you want to say a supporting character, Afrikaans usually uses ’n:

• ’n newekarakter = a supporting character
• die newekarakter = the supporting character

So the difference is:

• die = the
• ’n = a / an

No, not in the way languages like German or Dutch do.

In this sentence, die does not tell you whether the noun is masculine, feminine, or neuter. Afrikaans has largely lost grammatical gender in normal article use.

So you do not need to learn different words for the depending on gender. That makes Afrikaans simpler than many other European languages in this area.