Ná ete droog ek die borde af.

It is a time expression meaning after the meal, after eating, or sometimes after dinner/supper, depending on context.

Here, ete is a noun meaning meal, food, or eating. So ná ete is not a full clause like after we eat; it is a compact phrase meaning after the meal / after eating.

Afrikaans often leaves out the article in set expressions of time or routine.

So ná ete is a natural, idiomatic way to say after eating / after the meal in a general sense.

If you say ná die ete, that sounds more specific: after the meal, meaning a particular meal already known from the context.

Afrikaans main clauses usually follow the verb-second rule. That means whatever comes first, the finite verb still has to come second.

So in:

Ná ete droog ek die borde af.

• Ná ete = first element
• droog = finite verb in second position
• ek = subject

That is why it is Ná ete droog ek... and not Ná ete ek droog...

Yes. That is also correct.

Compare the two:

• Ná ete droog ek die borde af. → puts the time expression first, so it sounds like After the meal, I dry the plates.
• Ek droog die borde ná ete af. → starts more neutrally with I

Both are grammatical. The first one highlights when the action happens.

Because the verb is afdroog, which is a separable verb.

In a main clause, Afrikaans often splits separable verbs:

• dictionary form: afdroog
• main clause: droog ... af

So:

• Ek droog die borde af.
• Ná ete droog ek die borde af.

But in some other structures, it stays together:

• omdat ek die borde afdroog
• om die borde af te droog

This is very common in Afrikaans and also happens in Dutch and German.

Here it means to dry off, to wipe dry, or simply to dry in the sense of drying something with a cloth or towel.

With dishes, afdroog usually means you have washed them and are now drying them by hand.

So die borde afdroog is to dry the plates or to towel-dry the plates.

Die borde means the plates.

• bord = plate
• borde = plates

Afrikaans uses die as the definite article for both singular and plural nouns:

• die bord = the plate
• die borde = the plates

Unlike English, Afrikaans does not have different forms like the for one and another the for many. It is just die.

Literally, borde means plates.

In context, English might translate it more loosely as the dishes, but the Afrikaans word itself is specifically plates. If you wanted to talk about dishes or crockery more generally, you might use skottelgoed.

So this sentence is specifically about plates, not necessarily all the washing-up.

The basic word is na. The acute accent in ná is often used to show stress or emphasis, or sometimes to make the meaning especially clear.

So in this sentence, you can simply understand ná as after.

You may also see na ete without the accent in other writing. For a learner, the important thing is the meaning here: after.

Here it is a verb: dry.

Afrikaans droog can also be an adjective meaning dry, but the sentence structure shows that it is a verb here:

• Ná ete droog ek die borde af. → droog = verb
• Die borde is droog. → droog = adjective

The particle af also helps show that this is the verb afdroog.

You would say:

Ná ete droog ek nie die borde af nie.

Afrikaans standard negation usually uses nie ... nie:

• first nie after the verb area
• second nie at the end of the clause

So the pattern is:

Ná ete droog ek nie die borde af nie.