Die etiket bepaal wat ons herwin.

No. In Afrikaans, die usually means the.

A few useful notes:

• It is capitalized here only because it starts the sentence.
• It is pronounced roughly dee, not like English die.
• Afrikaans uses die as the normal definite article for both singular and plural nouns.

Here, etiket means label or tag.

It can look a bit confusing to English speakers because it resembles etiquette. In some contexts Afrikaans etiket can also relate to etiquette, but in this recycling context label is the right meaning.

bepaal means determine, decide, or sometimes indicate, depending on context.

In this sentence, it means that the label determines or tells us what should be recycled.

Because Afrikaans verbs usually do not change form in the present tense the way English verbs do.

So you get:

• ek bepaal = I determine
• ons bepaal = we determine
• die etiket bepaal = the label determines

That same basic verb form stays the same.

wat means what here.

It introduces the clause what we recycle:

• wat = what
• ons = we
• herwin = recycle / recover

So the structure is very close to English: The label determines what we recycle.

Here, ons means we, because it is the subject of herwin.

Afrikaans uses ons for both we and us, so you understand its role from the sentence structure.

herwin means recycle, recover, or reclaim, depending on context.

Literally, it has the idea of win back or recover again:

• her- often gives a sense like re-
• win relates to gain/recover

In environmental language, herwin is commonly used for recovering materials for reuse, so recycle is the natural translation here.

Yes, it is normal.

This part literally works like:

• wat = what
• ons = we
• herwin = recycle

So wat ons herwin = what we recycle.

For an English speaker, this part feels familiar because the order is quite close to English.

A rough English-style pronunciation guide is:

dee eh-ti-KET buh-PAHL vaht ons her-VIN

A few key points:

• die sounds like dee
• Afrikaans w sounds like English v
• etiket is stressed near the end: eh-ti-KET
• bepaal is roughly buh-PAHL
• wat is roughly vaht
• herwin has a v sound because of the Afrikaans w