Die motor steek ons verby.

Not by itself. The full verb here is verbysteek, which means to pass or to overtake. Afrikaans often has separable verbs, where one part appears earlier and another part appears at the end of the clause.

So in Die motor steek ons verby, you should understand steek ... verby as one unit: verbysteek.

On its own, steek often has other meanings, such as stick, stab, poke, or put/place depending on context.

Because verbysteek is a separable verb.

In a normal main clause, Afrikaans puts the finite verb early in the sentence, usually in second position. The separable part then moves to the end.

So:

• Die motor steek ons verby.

But the dictionary form is:

• verbysteek

And in other structures you can see it differently:

• dat die motor ons verbysteek
• om ons verby te steek
• Die motor sal ons verbysteek

So the split form in your sentence is completely normal.

Yes. In Afrikaans, ons can mean both we and us.

You tell which one it is from the sentence structure:

• Ons ry vinnig. = We drive fast.
• Die motor steek ons verby. = The car passes/overtakes us.

In your sentence, ons is the object of the verb, so it means us.

It is present tense.

Afrikaans very often uses the simple present where English might use either:

• passes us
• is passing us

So Die motor steek ons verby can work for either kind of present meaning, depending on context.

Afrikaans does not require a separate present continuous form in the same way English does.

Because in a main clause, separable verbs split.

Afrikaans follows the usual pattern where the finite verb comes early, and the separable particle goes to the end. That gives:

• Die motor steek ons verby.

So even though the dictionary form is verbysteek, you do not normally keep it together in this kind of sentence.

Yes. In everyday Afrikaans, motor commonly means car.

It can also refer more generally to a motor or engine in other contexts, but in a sentence like Die motor steek ons verby, the natural meaning is clearly the car.

Afrikaans uses die as the definite article for the, and it does not change for grammatical gender.

So you get:

• die motor = the car
• die man = the man
• die vrou = the woman
• die motors = the cars

That is much simpler than in some other Germanic languages. In your sentence, die motor simply means the car.

A very natural past form is:

• Die motor het ons verbygesteek.

This uses the common Afrikaans perfect construction:

• het
  • past participle

Notice that this also helps show the full separable verb more clearly: verbygesteek comes from verbysteek.

They are similar, but not always identical.

• verbygaan = go past
• verbysteek = pass / overtake

With vehicles, verbysteek often sounds more specifically like overtaking, especially in traffic. So with Die motor steek ons verby, the idea is not just that the car is somewhere passing by in general, but that it is moving past us.

Look for verbysteek, not just steek verby.

A good rule with Afrikaans separable verbs is:

• In the sentence, the parts may split.
• In the dictionary, you usually look for the combined form.

So from Die motor steek ons verby, the dictionary entry you want is verbysteek.