Questions & Answers about Mense werk elke dag.
What does Mense mean?
Mense means people. It’s the plural form of the noun mens (person).
Why is there no article before Mense?
In Afrikaans you generally omit an indefinite article before plural nouns. So instead of saying ’n mense, you just say mense to mean “people” in general.
Why is the verb werk the same for all subjects?
Afrikaans verbs do not change (conjugate) for person or number in the present tense. Whether it’s ek werk, jy werk, hulle werk or mense werk, the verb form werk stays identical.
Can werk also be used as a noun?
Yes. Werk as a noun means work or job. In that case you’d usually see an article or determiner, e.g. die werk (the work) or my werk (my job). Here, though, werk is clearly a verb because it follows the subject mense.
What does elke dag mean, and why is dag singular?
Elke means every, and dag means day. When using elke (“every”), the noun that follows stays singular: elke dag = every day.
What is the word order in this sentence?
The sentence follows standard Afrikaans word order for a simple statement: Subject – Verb – Adverbial time.
So it’s:
Subject = Mense
Verb = werk
Adverbial = elke dag
Is there another way to say “every day” in Afrikaans?
Yes. You can also use daagliks, which means daily. For example: Mense werk daagliks.
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