Ons kook vanaand hoender met rys en aartappels.

In Afrikaans, verbs do not change form for different subjects in the present tense the way they do in English.

So you get:

• ek kook = I cook
• jy kook = you cook
• ons kook = we cook
• hulle kook = they cook

The verb stays kook in all these cases. This is one of the nice simplifications in Afrikaans compared with English and Dutch.

Vanaand means tonight or this evening, depending on context.

It is made up historically from van + aand, but learners should usually just treat vanaand as a single common time word.

In this sentence, it tells you when the cooking is happening.

Afrikaans often uses the simple present tense where English might use are cooking or will cook, depending on context.

So:

• Ons kook vanaand can mean We are cooking tonight
• It can also sound like We cook tonight in a literal word-for-word sense

Afrikaans does have ways to express ongoing action, but in everyday speech the plain verb is very common and natural.

Yes. In Afrikaans, the present tense often covers a planned future action when a time word makes the meaning clear.

Because the sentence includes vanaand, it is understood as something happening later today/tonight.

So Afrikaans does not need a separate future marker here. You could add one in some contexts, but it is not necessary.

When talking about food in a general sense, Afrikaans often leaves out the article, just like English often can.

So:

• hoender = chicken
• rys = rice
• aartappels = potatoes

This sounds natural when listing what is being cooked or eaten.

If you wanted to be more specific, you could use an article, but in a sentence like this, leaving it out is completely normal.

It can mean both, depending on context.

• ’n hoender often means a chicken as an animal
• hoender with no article often means chicken as food

In this sentence, because it is about cooking and appears with other foods, hoender is understood as the meat.

Aartappels is the plural form of aartappel.

• aartappel = potato
• aartappels = potatoes

The sentence is talking about potatoes as part of the meal, so the plural is natural.

A very common Afrikaans plural ending is -s, as in this word.

Met means with.

So hoender met rys en aartappels means that the chicken is prepared or served with rice and potatoes.

It links the main food item to the side dishes or accompanying foods.

Just like in English, Afrikaans normally uses en before the final item in a simple list.

So:

• hoender met rys en aartappels

This is the normal way to say chicken with rice and potatoes.

You do not need an extra en before every item.

Yes. Afrikaans follows the verb-second pattern in main clauses.

So you can say:

• Ons kook vanaand hoender met rys en aartappels.
• Vanaand kook ons hoender met rys en aartappels.

Notice that when Vanaand moves to the front, the verb kook comes next, and ons comes after it.

That is a very important word-order pattern in Afrikaans.

In this sentence, ons means we.

Afrikaans ons can also sometimes correspond to English us, because Afrikaans does not distinguish between we and us in form the way English does.

Examples:

• Ons kook = We cook
• Hy sien ons = He sees us

So the meaning depends on the role it plays in the sentence. Here it is the subject, so it means we.

A rough guide for an English speaker is:

• Ons ≈ ons / awns depending on accent
• kook ≈ cohk
• vanaand ≈ fuh-NAHNT
• hoender ≈ HOON-der
• met ≈ met
• rys ≈ sounds close to race, but shorter and crisper
• en ≈ en
• aartappels ≈ AHR-tah-pelss

A few useful pronunciation notes:

• oo in kook is a long vowel
• v in Afrikaans is often pronounced closer to English f
• r is usually trilled or tapped more than in most English accents
• final consonants can sound a bit sharper than in English

These are only rough approximations, but they help with a first pass.

Yes, but it changes the nuance slightly.

• kook specifically means cook
• maak means make

In everyday speech, maak is very common for preparing food in general, while kook focuses more directly on cooking.

So both can work, but Ons kook vanaand ... is a very straightforward and natural sentence when talking about preparing the meal.