Toe sy die opskrif in die koerant lees, het sy gelag en die artikel vir haar suster gewys.

Here toe means when, introducing a time clause about a past event:

Toe sy die opskrif in die koerant lees = When she read the headline in the newspaper

Afrikaans toe can also mean then, but not in this sentence. Here it is acting as a conjunction, not an adverb.

Because toe introduces a subordinate clause, and in Afrikaans subordinate clauses normally send the finite verb to the end.

So you get:

Toe sy die opskrif in die koerant lees

not a main-clause order like sy lees die opskrif.

This is a very common Afrikaans pattern after words like toe, omdat, dat, and as.

This is a common Afrikaans pattern with toe in past-time narration. After toe, Afrikaans often uses the plain verb form at the end of the clause, even though the event is understood as past.

So Toe sy ... lees can still mean When she read ...

If you say Toe sy die opskrif gelees het, that is also possible, but it more strongly emphasizes that the reading was completed first, something closer to when/after she had read the headline.

Afrikaans main clauses normally follow the verb-second rule. The first position in the sentence is already taken by the whole toe-clause:

Toe sy die opskrif in die koerant lees,

So in the main clause, the finite verb het must come next:

het sy gelag ...

If the sentence started directly with the main clause, it would be:

Sy het gelag.

Afrikaans very often forms the past with het + past participle.

Here:

• lag → gelag
• wys → gewys

So:

• het sy gelag = she laughed
• die artikel ... gewys = showed the article ...

The auxiliary het is the part that moves into the verb-second position, while the participles stay later in the clause.

Because both verbs share the same subject and the same tense, Afrikaans can use one auxiliary for both:

het sy gelag en die artikel vir haar suster gewys

This is like saying:

she laughed and showed the article to her sister

You do not need to repeat het before gewys unless you want a heavier or more separated structure.

Vir haar suster means to her sister.

With verbs like wys, Afrikaans very often uses vir before the person who receives or is shown something:

• wys die artikel vir haar suster = show the article to her sister

So in this sentence:

• die artikel = the thing being shown
• vir haar suster = the person it is shown to

This use of vir is extremely common in everyday Afrikaans.

Because they are doing different jobs.

• sy here is the subject pronoun meaning she
• haar is the possessive form meaning her

So:

• sy lees = she reads
• haar suster = her sister

This is an important distinction, because sy suster would mean his sister, not her sister.

It is the same spelling, but not the same grammatical use.

In Afrikaans:

• sy can be a subject pronoun meaning she
• sy can also be a possessive determiner meaning his

The sentence position tells you which one it is.

Here, sy stands alone before the object and verb, so it is the subject pronoun:

Toe sy die opskrif ... lees = When she reads/read ...

If it were possessive, it would come directly before a noun, as in:

sy suster = his sister

Opskrif means headline or title, while artikel means article.

So the sentence is talking about two different things:

• she read the headline
• then she showed the article to her sister

That distinction is very natural in Afrikaans newspapers or magazines:

• opskrif = the heading
• artikel = the full piece of writing

Because in die koerant is the normal idiomatic way to say something is printed or appears in a newspaper.

So:

• in die koerant lees = read in the newspaper

If you said op die koerant, that would usually sound more like something is physically on top of the newspaper, not published inside it.

Because the sentence begins with a subordinate clause:

Toe sy die opskrif in die koerant lees,

and then moves to the main clause:

het sy gelag en die artikel vir haar suster gewys.

In standard Afrikaans punctuation, that introductory subordinate clause is separated from the main clause with a comma.