Die verkeersknoop is lank.

Die is the definite article, equivalent to English the.

A useful thing for English speakers to know is that Afrikaans uses die for:

• singular nouns: die verkeersknoop
• plural nouns: die verkeersknope

So Afrikaans does not change the definite article the way English changes the not at all, and it also does not have separate masculine/feminine/neuter forms here.

Because Afrikaans normally writes compound nouns as one word.

So verkeersknoop is a compound made from:

• verkeer = traffic
• knoop = knot

Together, the compound gives the idea of a traffic knot, which is the Afrikaans way of expressing a traffic jam or traffic snarl.

This is very common in Afrikaans. English often uses separate words where Afrikaans prefers one compound word.

The -s- is a linking sound/letter inside the compound. It helps join the two parts smoothly.

So this is:

• verkeer
• linking s
• knoop

It is not a plural ending here.

A learner might think it means traffic’s knot, but that is not really the right way to understand it. It is just part of how the compound is formed.

Yes. Is is the present-tense form of wees, which means to be.

One nice feature of Afrikaans is that this form is very simple:

• ek is = I am
• jy is = you are
• hy/sy is = he/she is
• ons is = we are
• hulle is = they are

So unlike English, Afrikaans does not have several different present-tense forms such as am, is, and are.

Because this is a normal main-clause word order in Afrikaans:

• Die verkeersknoop = subject
• is = verb
• lank = adjective/complement

So the structure is basically the same as English:

• The traffic jam is long

Afrikaans often looks very familiar to English speakers in simple statements like this.

If you turned it into a yes/no question, the verb would move first:

• Is die verkeersknoop lank?

Because after is, Afrikaans uses the predicative form of the adjective, and here that form is lank.

Compare:

• Die verkeersknoop is lank.
• die lang verkeersknoop

So:

• after the verb: lank
• before the noun: lang

This is one of those adjective pairs that English speakers simply have to get used to by seeing it in context.

It can do both.

Depending on context, lank can mean:

• long in distance/size
• long in time

For example:

• Die pad is lank. = The road is long.
• Ek het lank gewag. = I waited a long time.

In Die verkeersknoop is lank, the idea is usually that the traffic jam stretches a long way.

Afrikaans normally uses double nie for negation.

So the negative version is:

• Die verkeersknoop is nie lank nie.

This pattern is very important in Afrikaans:

• first nie appears before the part being negated
• second nie closes the clause

For an English speaker, this can feel unusual at first, but it is one of the most basic sentence patterns in Afrikaans.

For a yes/no question, Afrikaans usually puts the verb first:

• Is die verkeersknoop lank?

That is very similar to English:

• Is the traffic jam long?

So the statement and question are:

• Die verkeersknoop is lank.
• Is die verkeersknoop lank?