Learn Hardcore Afrikaans: My dankbaarheid vir my familie groei elke dag. - My gratitude for my family grows every day.

In Afrikaans the possessive pronoun my already functions as the determiner. You never say die alongside my (so never die my dankbaarheid). It’s simply my dankbaarheid.

Why is vir used in vir my familie? In English we’d say “gratitude to my family” or “gratitude for my family” – what’s the rule here?

Different nouns and verbs in Afrikaans pair with specific prepositions. dankbaarheid almost always takes vir when you’re grateful towards someone or something. You might see dankbaar teenoor in very formal or literary contexts, but in everyday speech vir is the go-to preposition.

Could I use aan instead of vir, like dankbaarheid aan my familie?

Not really. aan is used with verbs like gee aan (“give to”) or skryf aan (“write to”), but with the noun dankbaarheid you stick to vir. So always dankbaarheid vir.

Why is familie singular? In English “my family” is singular, but sometimes we think of “families” as a group.

In Afrikaans familie is treated as a collective singular noun. It refers to the whole unit as one group. If you really wanted to talk about multiple family units, you’d say families, but here you mean your own one family.

Why do we say groei instead of something like word groter or styg?

groei literally means “grows,” which nicely matches the English metaphor of something “growing.” You could say my dankbaarheid word elke dag groter (“my gratitude becomes bigger every day”) or even my dankbaarheid styg elke dag, but groei is the most direct way to convey that sense of organic growth.

Is there a more “personal” way to say this, like using Ek at the start?

Yes. A common alternative is Ek raak elke dag meer dankbaar vir my familie, literally “I become more grateful to my family every day.” That shifts the focus from the abstract noun dankbaarheid to the speaker (Ek).

Why is elke dag two separate words? In English “everyday” is one word when used as an adverb.

In Afrikaans elke (“every”) and dag (“day”) are always written as separate words when you mean “every day.” There is no fused form. If you wrote elkedag or elkedag as one word, it would be considered a spelling mistake.

How do you pronounce dankbaarheid?

Roughly DAHNK-buh-hayt, with the primary stress on dank and -baarheid sounding like “buh-hayt.” The r is lightly rolled or tapped, depending on your accent.

Why do we use my twice (my dankbaarheid and vir my familie)? Couldn’t you drop the second my?

Each my serves a different role. The first my is a possessive adjective modifying dankbaarheid, and the second my is part of the prepositional phrase vir my familie. If you drop the second my, you’d lose the possessive meaning (“for my family”).