Die omgewing is belangrik.

The environment is important.

Breakdown of Die omgewing is belangrik.

• wees: to be
• belangrik: important
• die omgewing: the environment; surroundings

Questions & Answers about Die omgewing is belangrik.

How is die pronounced here? It looks like the English word die.

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

In this sentence, die is the definite article, so it works like English the.

Does Afrikaans have grammatical gender, like de and het in Dutch or der/die/das in German?

No. Standard Afrikaans does not have grammatical gender in the way Dutch or German do.

That means:

• you do not have to learn different forms of the for masculine, feminine, or neuter nouns
• die is used as the definite article for nouns regardless of gender

So die omgewing is simply the environment.

Why is the word order Die omgewing is belangrik?

This is the normal word order for a simple statement in Afrikaans:

• Die omgewing = subject
• is = verb
• belangrik = predicate adjective

So the pattern is:

subject + verb + complement

Afrikaans main clauses also usually keep the finite verb in the second position, and this sentence follows that rule naturally.