Ons herbegin die telefoon.

Here, ons means we.

It is the subject pronoun of the sentence, so it tells you who is doing the action:

• Ons herbegin die telefoon. = We restart the phone.

A useful note: ons can also mean our in other contexts, but in this sentence it clearly means we because it comes before the verb.

Because Afrikaans verbs usually do not change according to the subject in the present tense.

So you get the same basic verb form with different subjects:

• Ek herbegin
• Jy herbegin
• Hy herbegin
• Ons herbegin

This is much simpler than English, where you have forms like I restart but he restarts. In Afrikaans, herbegin stays the same.

The prefix her- means something like re- or again, and begin means begin or start.

So herbegin literally means begin again or restart.

Similar words include:

• herlees = reread
• heropen = reopen
• hergebruik = reuse

So herbegin is a very transparent word once you know the prefix her-.

Yes, herbegin is written as one word.

Also, her- is an inseparable prefix in Afrikaans, so it stays attached to the verb. That matters especially in other tenses.

For example:

• Present: Ons herbegin die telefoon.
• Perfect: Ons het die telefoon herbegin.

Notice that you do not add ge- here. You do not say geherbegin.

Here, die means the.

It is the definite article in Afrikaans:

• die telefoon = the phone

A very important point for learners: Afrikaans uses die for both singular and plural definite nouns, and it does not change for gender.

So unlike languages that have different forms for the, Afrikaans keeps it simple:

• die boek = the book
• die boeke = the books
• die man = the man
• die vrou = the woman

Because Afrikaans does not use grammatical gender in its articles the way some other Germanic languages do.

That means you do not need to learn separate forms like masculine, feminine, or neuter articles. You simply use die for the.

So:

• die telefoon
• die tafel
• die kind

all use the same article.

This is one of the easier parts of Afrikaans grammar for English speakers.

Telefoon is correct and fully understandable, but in everyday modern speech, many speakers would often say selfoon if they mean a cell phone / mobile phone.

So the most natural choice depends on what kind of phone you mean:

• telefoon = phone / telephone
• selfoon = cell phone / mobile phone

If the sentence is about rebooting a smartphone, Ons herbegin die selfoon may sound more natural in many contexts.

The sentence follows the normal subject–verb–object pattern:

• Ons = subject
• herbegin = verb
• die telefoon = object

So:

• Ons herbegin die telefoon.

This is the standard word order for a simple main clause in Afrikaans.

A useful related point: Afrikaans is a verb-second language in main clauses. If you move another element to the front, the verb still stays in second position:

• Vandag herbegin ons die telefoon. = Today we restart the phone.

In a yes/no question, Afrikaans typically puts the verb first:

• Herbegin ons die telefoon? = Are we restarting the phone?

So compared with the statement:

• Ons herbegin die telefoon.

the question simply switches the subject and the verb.

Afrikaans usually uses double negation:

• Ons herbegin nie die telefoon nie.

This is a very common Afrikaans pattern:

• first nie comes after the verb or later in the clause
• second nie comes at the end of the clause

So if you are learning Afrikaans, this is an important structure to get used to.