Eintlik wou ek my laaier saamneem, maar ek het dit by die huis vergeet.

Eintlik often means actually, really, or in fact. In this sentence, it adds a nuance like Actually, I wanted to bring my charger... or I did mean to bring my charger...

It often signals:

• a correction
• a clarification
• or what the speaker originally intended

So here it suggests that the speaker’s intention was to bring the charger, but that plan did not happen.

This is because Afrikaans usually follows a verb-second pattern in main clauses.

If a word like eintlik comes first, the finite verb must come second:

• Eintlik wou ek my laaier saamneem.

If there is no fronted word, you would normally get:

• Ek wou eintlik my laaier saamneem.

So wou ek is not random word order. It happens because eintlik is occupying the first position.

Wou is the past form of wil.

• wil = want / wants / want to
• wou = wanted / wanted to

So:

• Ek wil my laaier saamneem = I want to take my charger along
• Ek wou my laaier saamneem = I wanted to take my charger along

In your sentence, the speaker is talking about an earlier intention, so wou is the correct form.

Saamneem is a compound verb meaning take along or bring along.

It is made up of:

• saam = along / with
• neem = take

In Afrikaans, many such verbs are written as one word in their dictionary form and in some sentence patterns.

Compare:

• Ek neem my laaier saam.
  Here the verb splits because it is being used as the main finite verb.

• Ek wil my laaier saamneem.
  Here it stays together because it appears in the infinitive after a modal verb.

So in your sentence, wou is the finite verb, and saamneem stays together at the end.

It is a separable verb, so its form changes depending on the sentence structure.

Examples:

• Ek neem my laaier saam.
  Present tense main clause: split

• Ek het my laaier saamgeneem.
  Perfect tense: ge goes in the middle

• Ek wil my laaier saamneem.
  After a modal verb: stays together

This is very common in Afrikaans and also appears with verbs like uittrek, inpak, aantrek, and many others.

Afrikaans normally uses a possessive adjective before the noun, just like English:

• my laaier = my charger
• jou boek = your book
• haar huis = her house

So my works very much like English my. You do not need an extra word like of.

This is the normal Afrikaans perfect tense, which is used very often for past events.

The pattern is:

• het
  • past participle

So:

• ek het dit vergeet = I forgot it / I have forgotten it

In everyday Afrikaans, the perfect tense is very common where English might simply use the simple past.

Good question. Many Afrikaans past participles do take ge-, for example:

• maak → gemaak
• koop → gekoop

But verbs with certain prefixes usually do not take ge-. One of those prefixes is ver-.

So:

• vergeet → vergeet
• verkoop → verkoop
• vertel → vertel

That is why the sentence has het vergeet, not het gevergeet.

Dit means it, and it refers back to my laaier.

So the structure is:

• my laaier is mentioned first
• then the speaker refers back to it with dit

This avoids repeating the noun:

• ...maar ek het my laaier by die huis vergeet is also possible
• ...maar ek het dit by die huis vergeet sounds very natural because the object has already been mentioned

In a main clause with the perfect tense, the finite verb het usually comes second, and the past participle goes toward the end.

So the basic pattern is:

• subject
• het
• other elements
• participle

That gives:

• ek het dit by die huis vergeet

The object pronoun dit often comes quite early in the clause, before phrases like by die huis.

In this expression, by die huis means at home or at the house/home.

So although by often does mean by, in Afrikaans it is also commonly used where English would say at.

Examples:

• Ek is by die huis. = I am at home.
• Hy bly by sy ouers. = He lives with his parents / at his parents’ place.

So dit by die huis vergeet means forgot it at home.

Yes, often you can.

• Ek het dit by die huis vergeet.
• Ek het dit tuis vergeet.

Both are natural. By die huis is a little more literal, while tuis is a compact adverb meaning at home. In many situations they are interchangeable.

Because maar is a coordinating conjunction, and after it Afrikaans normally keeps normal main-clause word order.

So:

• ..., maar ek het dit vergeet.

That is different from what happens when a different element is placed first in a clause, such as eintlik, which causes inversion:

• Eintlik wou ek...

So:

• after eintlik at the start of a clause: verb comes before the subject
• after maar: the next clause starts normally with ek het