Breakdown of Sonder my laaier bly ek wakker en wag dat die battery weer vol word.
ek
I
weer
again
my
my
en
and
Questions & Answers about Sonder my laaier bly ek wakker en wag dat die battery weer vol word.
What does sonder mean, and how is it used in this sentence?
Sonder means without.
In Sonder my laaier, it introduces something that is missing: without my charger.
A useful thing to know is that sonder is a preposition, so it works a lot like English without:
- sonder suiker = without sugar
- sonder hom = without him
- sonder my laaier = without my charger
Afrikaans often lets a prepositional phrase like this come first in the sentence for emphasis.
Why is it my laaier and not something like myne laaier?
In Afrikaans, the normal possessive before a noun is simply my:
- my boek = my book
- my foon = my phone
- my laaier = my charger
English speakers sometimes expect a longer possessive form, but Afrikaans keeps it short.
Also, myne is not used the same way as English mine before a noun. If you want to say mine on its own, Afrikaans usually uses myne or another construction depending on context, but before a noun you use my.
So:
- my laaier = correct
- myne laaier = not correct
What does mean exactly?