Kan u verduidelik of die sout en peper op die ander tafel is?

u is the polite or formal word for you in Afrikaans. You would use it when speaking to someone you do not know well, someone older, a customer, or in a formal setting.

If you were speaking casually to a friend, you would normally use jy instead:

• Kan u verduidelik ...? = formal
• Kan jy verduidelik ...? = informal

Because this is a yes-no question, and Afrikaans usually puts the finite verb first in that kind of question.

So:

• statement order: U kan verduidelik ...
• question order: Kan u verduidelik ...?

This works very much like English Can you ...?

After a modal verb such as kan, wil, moet, or sal, the next verb appears without te.

So:

• Ek wil gaan
• Sy kan lees
• Kan u verduidelik ...

English speakers sometimes expect something like to explain, but Afrikaans does not use te after modal verbs in this structure.

Here of means whether or if in the sense of an indirect yes-no question.

So of die sout en peper op die ander tafel is means something like whether the salt and pepper are on the other table.

A useful distinction is:

• of = whether / if
• as = if / when in conditions

For example:

• Ek weet nie of hy kom nie = I do not know whether he is coming
• As hy kom, sal ons begin = If he comes, we will start

Because of introduces a subordinate clause, and in Afrikaans subordinate clauses usually push the finite verb to the end.

So:

• main clause: Die sout en peper is op die ander tafel
• subordinate clause: of die sout en peper op die ander tafel is

This verb-final pattern is one of the most important word-order rules in Afrikaans.

Afrikaans does not change the present-tense form of to be the way English does. The word is is used with both singular and plural subjects.

For example:

• Die tafel is groot = The table is big
• Die tafels is groot = The tables are big
• Die sout en peper is daar = The salt and pepper are there

So is is completely normal here.

Because die sout en peper is one coordinated noun phrase: the two nouns are joined by en, and they share the same article.

This is normal in Afrikaans, just as in English you can say the salt and pepper rather than repeating the before both nouns.

You could repeat the article in some contexts, but it is usually unnecessary.

ander means other. So die ander tafel means the other table.

It is acting like an adjective before tafel. This is a very common phrase pattern in Afrikaans:

• die ander man = the other man
• die ander dag = the other day
• die ander tafel = the other table

It is grammatical, but it may sound a little more formal or heavier than English speakers expect.

Verduidelik means explain, so the sentence can sound like you are asking someone to explain whether that is the case, not simply tell you.

If you only want the information, Afrikaans speakers might more naturally say:

• Kan u sê of die sout en peper op die ander tafel is?
• Weet u of die sout en peper op die ander tafel is?

So the original sentence is possible, but not always the most natural choice in everyday speech.

Yes. In this sentence, op means on or on top of.

So op die ander tafel means on the other table.

It is the normal preposition you would use for something resting on a surface:

• Die boek is op die tafel
• Die bord is op die toonbank

Yes. You can simply replace u with jy in informal speech:

• Kan jy verduidelik of die sout en peper op die ander tafel is?

The rest of the sentence stays the same. Afrikaans verbs do not change the way English verbs sometimes do, so there is no extra adjustment needed here.