Ek plak 'n posseël op die koevert en sit dit in die posbus.

'n is the Afrikaans indefinite article, the equivalent of English a/an.

A few important things about it:

• It is pronounced like a very weak uh sound.
• You do not pronounce it like the letter n.
• The apostrophe is part of the normal spelling.
• It stays lowercase even if it begins a sentence. For example: 'n Posseël is op die tafel.

If you want to say one as a number, Afrikaans usually uses een, not 'n.

Because die is the normal Afrikaans definite article, meaning the.

Unlike English learners may expect from some other languages, Afrikaans does not change the definite article for:

• gender
• case
• most singular/plural situations

So you get:

• die koevert = the envelope
• die posbus = the mailbox/postbox

That makes articles in Afrikaans much simpler than in languages like German or Dutch.

Afrikaans, like Dutch and German, very often forms compound nouns as one word.

So:

• pos
  • seël → posseël
• pos
  • bus → posbus

English often uses two words where Afrikaans prefers one compound. So a learner should get used to seeing long single-word nouns in Afrikaans.

The two dots on ë are called a diaeresis. In Afrikaans, they show that the vowels are pronounced separately rather than blending into one sound.

So in seël, the vowel sounds are kept apart. That helps with pronunciation and reading.

This is why the word is spelled seël, and the compound keeps that spelling in posseël.

That is because the verbs and the physical image are different:

• plak ... op = stick something onto a surface
• sit ... in = put something into something

So:

• Ek plak 'n posseël op die koevert = I stick a stamp on the envelope
• sit dit in die posbus = put it in the mailbox

These prepositions are very natural here. Op goes with attachment to a surface; in goes with movement into a container or space.

In Afrikaans, sit can mean not only sit, but also put/place something somewhere.

So in this sentence:

• sit dit in die posbus = put it in the mailbox

This is very common everyday Afrikaans. English uses put here, but Afrikaans often uses sit in the same situation.

A more formal verb like plaas can also mean place, but sit is much more natural in ordinary speech.

Dit means it.

In this sentence, it refers to the thing being mailed — most naturally the envelope, or possibly the whole letter/envelope item depending on context.

Afrikaans does not have grammatical gender in the same way as languages like German or Dutch, so using dit for an object is straightforward. You do not have to worry about masculine or feminine noun classes here.

Because the second part has the same subject, and Afrikaans can leave that repeated subject out.

The full structure is basically:

• Ek plak 'n posseël op die koevert en ek sit dit in die posbus.

But since both actions are done by ek, it is very normal to say:

• Ek plak 'n posseël op die koevert en sit dit in die posbus.

So the second ek is understood.

Because after en, Afrikaans is still continuing with a main-clause structure.

Afrikaans main clauses normally keep the finite verb early in the clause. Here the sentence is really:

• Ek plak ... en (ek) sit dit in die posbus

So sit comes before dit.

If you put dit before sit, you would no longer have the normal word order for this kind of clause.

Yes. Koevert is the standard everyday word for envelope in Afrikaans.

So this sentence sounds natural and ordinary:

• Ek plak 'n posseël op die koevert ...

It is a useful everyday word to remember if you are talking about letters, post, or mailing something.