Ek droom dikwels dat ek my ou skool weer besoek.

In Afrikaans, the simple present tense is commonly used for things that happen regularly or habitually, just like in English with expressions such as I often dream.

So:

• Ek droom = I dream / I am dreaming
• Ek droom dikwels = I often dream

Afrikaans does not usually need a special verb form for habitual actions here.

Dikwels means often.

In this sentence, it comes after the verb:

• Ek droom dikwels ... = I often dream ...

That position is very natural in Afrikaans. Adverbs like dikwels, altyd (always), and soms (sometimes) often come after the verb in a main clause.

Compare:

• Ek lees dikwels. = I often read.
• Sy kom altyd laat. = She always arrives late.

Dat means that and introduces a subordinate clause.

So the sentence is structured like this:

• Ek droom dikwels = main clause
• dat ek my ou skool weer besoek = subordinate clause

Together:

• Ek droom dikwels dat ek my ou skool weer besoek.

In English, that is often optional:
I often dream (that) I visit my old school again.

In Afrikaans, dat is very commonly used in this kind of sentence.

Because after dat, Afrikaans uses subordinate clause word order, where the conjugated verb usually moves to the end.

Main clause:

• Ek besoek my ou skool weer.
  = I visit my old school again.

Subordinate clause after dat:

• ... dat ek my ou skool weer besoek.
  = ... that I visit my old school again.

This is one of the most important word-order patterns in Afrikaans.

Yes, ou literally means old, but in this sentence my ou skool usually means my old/former school, not necessarily a school that is physically old.

So depending on context, ou can mean:

• old in age
• former / previous
• sometimes even dear old in an emotional sense

Here, a native English speaker would usually understand it as:

• my old school
• or more clearly, my former school

In Afrikaans, my means my and does not change form before a noun.

So:

• my skool = my school
• my ou skool = my old school

Unlike in some languages, Afrikaans does not have different possessive adjective forms depending on gender, case, or number in a sentence like this.

Other examples:

• my boek = my book
• my vriende = my friends
• my nuwe huis = my new house

Here weer means again.

So:

• my ou skool weer besoek = visit my old school again

In English, depending on context, this might sound like:

• visit my old school again
• go back to visit my old school

Afrikaans often uses weer where English might use again or sometimes the idea of back.

Because in this subordinate clause, the adverb weer comes before the final verb:

• ... dat ek my ou skool weer besoek

That is normal Afrikaans word order.

You can think of the subordinate clause pattern as:

• dat
  • subject + other information + verb at the end

So:

• dat
• ek
• my ou skool
• weer
• besoek

Yes. Besoek is the standard verb meaning visit.

You can use it for places and people:

• Ek besoek my ou skool. = I visit my old school.
• Ons besoek my ouma. = We visit my grandmother.

It can also be used as a noun:

• die besoek = the visit

But in your sentence, besoek is clearly the verb.

Yes, that is a very natural way to understand it in English.

Afrikaans does not always make the same tense/aspect distinctions that English does between:

• I visit
• I am visiting

So dat ek my ou skool weer besoek can often be translated naturally depending on context as:

• that I visit my old school again
• that I am visiting my old school again

If this is about the content of a dream, English often prefers the more vivid I am visiting.

A very literal breakdown would be:

• Ek = I
• droom = dream
• dikwels = often
• dat = that
• ek = I
• my ou skool = my old school
• weer = again
• besoek = visit

So literally:

I dream often that I my old school again visit.

That sounds unnatural in English, but it helps show the Afrikaans structure.

A rough English-friendly guide is:

• Ek ≈ eck
• droom ≈ drohm
• dikwels ≈ DIK-vels
• dat ≈ dut / daht
• ek ≈ eck
• my ≈ may
• ou ≈ oh
• skool ≈ skohl
• weer ≈ veer
• besoek ≈ buh-SOOK

A few notes:

• skool sounds a lot like English school, but with a clearer long oo sound.
• weer begins with a v sound, because Afrikaans w is pronounced like English v.
• besoek has stress on the second syllable: be-SOEK.

Usually, it is better to keep dat here.

Afrikaans generally uses dat clearly to introduce the clause after verbs like dink (think), weet (know), hoop (hope), and droom (dream), when the meaning is that...

So:

• Ek droom dikwels dat ek my ou skool weer besoek.
  is the normal and safest form.

Leaving it out would sound less standard and may be confusing for a learner.

The biggest grammar point is this:

After dat, the verb goes to the end.

So learn the contrast:

• Main clause:
  Ek besoek my ou skool weer.
• Subordinate clause:
  ... dat ek my ou skool weer besoek.

If you remember that pattern, this sentence becomes much easier to understand and build yourself.