Ons help duisend mense.

We help a thousand people.

Breakdown of Ons help duisend mense.

• ons: we
• help: to help
• mense: people
• duisend: thousand

Questions & Answers about Ons help duisend mense.

Why is help the same form as in English, and why doesn’t it change for ons?

Afrikaans verbs usually do not change according to the subject.

So:

• ek help = I help
• jy help = you help
• ons help = we help
• hulle help = they help

Unlike English, Afrikaans does not add -s in the third person singular, and it does not have different present-tense forms for different subjects. That makes verb conjugation much simpler.

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What does ons mean here?

In this sentence, ons means we.

So the structure is:

• Ons = we
• help = help
• duisend mense = a thousand people

A useful note: ons can also mean us or our in other contexts, so you must use context to know its role. Here, because it comes before the verb, it is clearly the subject: we.

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Why is the word order Ons help duisend mense?

This is the normal basic Afrikaans main-clause word order:

Subject + Verb + Object

So:

• Ons = subject
• help = verb
• duisend mense = object

This is very similar to normal English word order:

• We help a thousand people.

So for a beginner, the sentence structure is very straightforward.

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