Sy asem is warm.

Here it means his.

In Afrikaans, sy can mean either she or his, so learners often have to use the sentence structure to tell which one it is. In Sy asem is warm, sy comes before a noun, asem, so it is possessive: his breath.

Compare:

• Sy is warm = She is warm
• Sy asem is warm = His breath is warm

Because sy already works as the determiner.

This is the same idea as English his breath. You do not say the his breath in English, and you normally do not say die sy asem in Afrikaans either. The possessive word sy already fills that role.

Is is the present-tense form of the verb wees, meaning to be.

It works just like English is in this sentence. It links the subject Sy asem to the description warm.

So the structure is:

• Sy asem = subject
• is = linking verb
• warm = description

Here, asem is a noun.

It means breath in this sentence. It is the thing being described as warm.

If you want to express the action to breathe, Afrikaans more commonly uses asemhaal. So in this sentence, think of asem specifically as the noun breath.

Because this is the normal word order for a simple main clause.

Afrikaans usually puts the finite verb in the second position of a main clause. Here, the whole subject phrase Sy asem comes first, then the verb is, then the adjective warm.

So the pattern is:

• Sy asem
• is
• warm

That is why it looks very similar to English.

Because after is, the adjective normally stays in its basic form.

In Sy asem is warm, warm is being used after a linking verb, not directly before a noun. In that position, Afrikaans adjectives usually do not take an extra ending.

So warm is the correct form here.

A rough English-friendly approximation is:

• Sy: a bit like say, though not exactly the same
• asem: roughly AA-sum
• is: short is
• warm: roughly varm, because Afrikaans w sounds like English v

So the whole sentence is roughly:

say AA-sum is varm

That is only an approximation, but it is a useful starting point.

You would say:

Haar asem is warm.

Only the possessive word changes:

• sy = his
• haar = her

The rest of the sentence stays the same.