Breakdown of Ek het geen besluit geneem oor die wintervakansie nie.
ek
I
hê
to have
nie
not
neem
to take
geen
no
die besluit
the decision
oor
about
die wintervakansie
the winter vacation
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Questions & Answers about Ek het geen besluit geneem oor die wintervakansie nie.
Why do we use geen ... nie to negate the verb phrase here, instead of just nie?
In Afrikaans you normally signal negation with a double negation: one part before the main verb or object (here geen) and one part at the end of the clause (nie).
- geen is the negative form of the indefinite article ’n and goes directly before a noun to mean “no” or “none.”
- The final nie is required to complete the negation around the verb phrase.
If you dropped geen, you’d have to restructure to something like Ek het nie ’n besluit geneem nie, but using geen is more concise and idiomatic when you want to say “no decision.”
What is the role of het in this sentence?
het is the auxiliary verb used to form the perfect tense in Afrikaans (equivalent to English “have” in “I have made”). In this sentence it helps create the past perfect meaning “I have made” (or simply “I made,” depending on context).
Why is geneem used here, and what does it mean?
geneem is the past participle of neem (“to take”). In Afrikaans the verb phrase besluit neem literally means “to take a decision,” i.e. “to make a decision.” So
- het geneem = “have taken”
- besluit geneem = “have made a decision”
Could we drop geneem and just say Ek het besluit oor die wintervakansie nie?
Yes and no. You can say Ek het nog nie besluit oor die wintervakansie nie, which means “I haven’t decided about the winter holiday yet,” but you must then include nog (“yet”) and keep both nies for proper negation. Without nog it sounds incomplete. If you prefer the full idiom besluit geneem, you stick with Ek het geen besluit geneem oor die wintervakansie nie.
What does oor mean in this context?
oor is a preposition meaning about, concerning, or regarding. Here it links besluit geneem (“made a decision”) to the topic die wintervakansie (“the winter holiday”).
Why is wintervakansie written as one word?
Afrikaans forms many compound nouns by joining words together. winter + vakansie becomes wintervakansie. This is typical for seasons + holidays (e.g. somerblom “summer flower”) and for most other noun compounds.
Could we use niks instead of geen besluit to say the same thing?
Not exactly. niks means “nothing,” so Ek het niks geneem nie would mean “I didn’t take anything,” which is unrelated. To talk about not making a decision, you need to negate besluit itself, which is why geen besluit (no decision) is the correct choice here.