Die materiaal is skoon.

to be

Breakdown of Die materiaal is skoon.

• skoon: clean
• die materiaal: the material; substance

Questions & Answers about Die materiaal is skoon.

Why does die mean the here, and is it pronounced like English die?

In this sentence, die is the normal Afrikaans definite article, meaning the.

It is not pronounced like the English verb die. In Afrikaans, die is usually pronounced roughly like dee.

A useful thing to remember is that Afrikaans does not have different words for the based on gender, so die is used very widely.

What part of speech is is in this sentence?

Is is the verb, and it works just like English is.

The sentence structure is:

• Die materiaal = the subject
• is = the verb
• skoon = the description

So Die materiaal is skoon literally matches English word-for-word:

• The material
• is
• clean

Why is the word order so similar to English here?