Sy inspekteer die enjin.

Here sy is the subject pronoun she.

It is capitalized as Sy only because it is the first word of the sentence. In the middle of a sentence, it would normally be sy.

A useful extra note: sy can also mean his in other contexts, so word order helps you understand it. In Sy inspekteer die enjin, it comes before the verb, so it is clearly she.

Sy is pronounced roughly like say, but with an Afrikaans vowel sound.

A simple English-friendly guide is:

• sy → roughly say

The exact Afrikaans sound is not identical to English say, but that approximation is good enough for a beginner.

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

So you get:

• ek inspekteer
• jy inspekteer
• hy inspekteer
• sy inspekteer

Unlike English, Afrikaans does not add -s for he/she/it in sentences like this.

In many contexts, simple Afrikaans present tense can cover both ideas, depending on context.

So sy inspekteer can often correspond to:

• she inspects
• she is inspecting

If you need to make the ongoing action especially clear, Afrikaans has other ways to do that, but the basic present tense often does the job.

Die is the definite article, meaning the.

In Afrikaans, die is used for:

• singular nouns: die enjin
• plural nouns: die enjins

So unlike English, Afrikaans does not have different forms of the for singular and plural. It is just die in both cases.

No. Afrikaans nouns generally do not have grammatical gender the way nouns do in some other languages.

So enjin is not treated as masculine or feminine for article or adjective agreement. You simply use die enjin.

This is one reason Afrikaans grammar often feels simpler than languages with noun gender.

Yes, in this basic sentence it is very similar to English:

• Sy = subject
• inspekteer = verb
• die enjin = object

So the pattern is:

Subject + Verb + Object

However, Afrikaans has an important rule that the finite verb usually stays in the second position in a main clause. For example:

• Vandag inspekteer sy die enjin.

So even when another element comes first, the verb still stays in second place.

A simple approximation is:

• inspekteer → in-spek-TEER
• die → roughly dee
• enjin → sounds similar to English engine

So the full sentence is approximately:

say in-spek-TEER dee engine

That is only an approximation, but it is a helpful starting point.

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

• Inspekteer sy die enjin?

That is the equivalent pattern of Is she inspecting the engine? / Does she inspect the engine?

So the main change is:

• statement: Sy inspekteer die enjin.
• question: Inspekteer sy die enjin?

Afrikaans normally uses a double negative pattern with nie ... nie.

So:

• Sy inspekteer die enjin. becomes
• Sy inspekteer nie die enjin nie.

This is a very important Afrikaans structure. English speakers often need time to get used to it, because standard English usually uses only one negative word in a sentence.