Nadat ons geëet het, stryk sy haar rok en vou ek my broek op die bed.

Because nadat introduces a whole clause, not just a noun.

• nadat ons geëet het = after we ate / after we had eaten
• na ete = after the meal
• na die middagete = after lunch

So if you want to say after + subject + verb, Afrikaans normally uses nadat.

Because nadat makes this a subordinate clause, and in Afrikaans subordinate clauses the finite verb often goes to the end.

Compare:

• Main clause: Ons het geëet.
• Subordinate clause: nadat ons geëet het

So English speakers often expect ons het geëet, but after nadat, the order changes to ons geëet het.

The ë shows that the vowels are pronounced separately.

Without the dots, you might try to read it as one vowel sound. But geëet is really:

• ge-
  • eet

So the spelling tells you to pronounce both parts clearly. This kind of spelling is common in Afrikaans when prefixes like ge- are added to verbs beginning with a vowel.

This is due to normal Afrikaans main-clause word order: the finite verb comes second.

The sentence starts with the time clause:

• Nadat ons geëet het,

That whole clause takes the first position. So in the main clause, the verb comes next, before the subject:

• stryk sy haar rok
• vou ek my broek op die bed

This is often called inversion from an English learner’s point of view, but in Afrikaans it is just standard verb-second word order.

In this sentence, sy comes after the verb and functions as the subject, so it means she.

• stryk sy haar rok = she irons her dress

If sy meant his, it would normally come before a noun:

• sy broek = his trousers / his pants

So position helps you identify the meaning.

Because haar is the normal possessive form meaning her.

• sy = she as a subject pronoun
• haar = her as a possessive determiner or object form

So:

• sy stryk haar rok = she irons her dress

This can be confusing because sy can also mean his in other contexts, but here haar rok clearly means her dress.

Yes. In this sentence, stryk means to iron.

So:

• stryk haar rok = iron her dress

Like many verbs, stryk can have other meanings in other contexts, but with clothing like rok, iron is the natural meaning.

Afrikaans treats broek as a singular noun for one item of clothing.

So:

• my broek = my trousers / my pants

Even though English often uses a plural form, Afrikaans usually uses singular broek for one pair.
The plural broeke is used for more than one pair, or in some specific contexts.

Here it just means on the bed and tells you where the folding happens.

So the structure is:

• vou = fold
• my broek = my trousers / my pants
• op die bed = on the bed

This is not the separable verb opvou in this sentence. The op here belongs to the phrase op die bed.

Because the eating is presented as already completed before the other actions.

• ons geëet het = the eating happened first
• stryk sy
• vou ek

The main-clause verbs are in the present tense here. That can sound unusual to an English speaker in isolation, but it is possible in Afrikaans, especially in a habitual or narrative style.

If you wanted the whole sentence clearly in the past, you could say:

• Nadat ons geëet het, het sy haar rok gestryk en het ek my broek op die bed gevou.

So the original sentence highlights that the eating was completed before the ironing and folding.