Die lig is helder.

The illumination is bright.

Breakdown of Die lig is helder.

• wees: to be
• helder: bright
• die lig: illumination

Questions & Answers about Die lig is helder.

What does die mean here? Is it the same as the English word die?

No. In this sentence, die means the.

So die lig means the light.

A few useful points:

• die is the normal definite article in Afrikaans
• it is used with both singular and plural nouns
• it is pronounced roughly like dee

So the word may look familiar to an English speaker, but it has a completely different meaning here.

Why is Die capitalized?

It is capitalized only because it is the first word of the sentence.

If the same word appeared in the middle of a sentence, it would normally be written as die.

Afrikaans does not capitalize ordinary nouns the way German does.

What does lig mean here, and can it mean other things?