Die telling bepaal die wenner.

Here die means the.

It is pronounced dee, not like the English word die. That is one of the first things English speakers usually need to notice in Afrikaans.

So:

• die telling = the score / the tally / the count
• die wenner = the winner

Because both nouns are definite:

• die telling = the score
• die wenner = the winner

This works just like English: The score determines the winner.
You also repeat the in English, so repeating die in Afrikaans is completely normal.

No. Afrikaans is much simpler here.

Die is the definite article for:

• masculine nouns
• feminine nouns
• neuter nouns
• singular nouns
• plural nouns

So learners do not have to memorize different forms of the for different genders or cases.

Telling is a noun meaning something like:

• count
• tally
• score

In this sentence, score or tally is probably the most natural meaning.

It comes from the verb tel, meaning to count.

A useful warning: although telling looks like the English word telling, it is not the English telling as in telling a story. Here it is a noun related to counting.

Bepaal means determine, decide, or sometimes set/fix, depending on context.

In this sentence, the best sense is:

• determines
• decides

So Die telling bepaal die wenner can be understood as:

• The score determines the winner
• The tally decides the winner

Afrikaans verbs do not usually add an -s in the present tense the way English does.

Compare:

• English: I determine, he determines
• Afrikaans: ek bepaal, hy bepaal

So after die telling you still use bepaal, not a special third-person singular form.

Yes. Wenner means winner, and it is related to the verb wen, meaning to win.

So:

• wen = win
• wenner = winner

That pattern is very similar to English, where a person who does something can often be named with -er.

Because this is a simple main clause, and the structure is straightforward:

• Die telling = subject
• bepaal = verb
• die wenner = object

So the pattern is:

Subject + Verb + Object

Afrikaans often looks very English-like in short main clauses. A more technical way to describe it is that Afrikaans puts the finite verb in the second position in main clauses. Since the subject comes first here, the result is the familiar English-like order.

Yes. In this sentence, decides is a very natural translation.

So depending on context, you might translate the whole sentence as:

• The score determines the winner
• The score decides the winner
• The tally determines the winner

All of these are reasonable.

A simple learner-friendly pronunciation is:

dee TEL-ing buh-PAHL dee VEN-er

A few helpful notes:

• die = dee
• telling has stress on the first syllable: TEL-ing
• bepaal has stress on the second syllable: buh-PAHL
• wenner begins with a sound like English v, so wenner sounds roughly like VEN-er

So the full sentence is roughly:

dee TEL-ing buh-PAHL dee VEN-er