Hy means he. It is the third-person singular masculine subject pronoun.
A few related pronouns are:
So in this sentence, hy is simply the person doing the action.
No. Afrikaans does not use grammatical gender the way languages like German do. That means die stays the same regardless of whether the noun refers to a male person, a female person, or an object.
That makes Afrikaans articles much easier than in many other European languages.
Voertuig means vehicle. It is a general word, so it can refer to a car, truck, or another type of vehicle depending on context.
In everyday speech, if someone specifically means a car, they might often say kar or motor. But voertuig is a perfectly normal and correct word, especially in formal, legal, or technical contexts.
Yes. Hy beheer die voertuig is in the present tense.
Depending on context, it can mean:
Afrikaans often uses the simple present where English might use either the simple present or the present continuous.
A rough guide for an English speaker is:
A few pronunciation notes:
Afrikaans normally uses a double negative:
Hy beheer nie die voertuig nie.
This literally looks unusual to English speakers because nie appears twice, but that is standard Afrikaans negation.
Pattern:
For a yes/no question, Afrikaans usually puts the verb first:
Beheer hy die voertuig?
That is the normal inversion pattern:
This is similar to English word order changes in questions, though Afrikaans often does it more directly.