Hy beheer die voertuig.

In Afrikaans, verbs usually do not change form depending on the subject. So you get:

• ek beheer = I control
• jy beheer = you control
• hy beheer = he controls
• ons beheer = we control

This is much simpler than English, where you have I control but he controls.

Hy means he. It is the third-person singular masculine subject pronoun.

A few related pronouns are:

• ek = I
• jy = you
• sy = she
• ons = we
• hulle = they

So in this sentence, hy is simply the person doing the action.

Here, beheer is the verb meaning control, manage, or operate, depending on context.

With voertuig after it, the meaning is most naturally controls or is controlling the vehicle.

So beheer can suggest being in command of something, not just physically touching it.

Yes. Die is the Afrikaans definite article, meaning the.

One useful thing for English speakers is that Afrikaans does not have different forms of the for gender. So:

• die man = the man
• die vrou = the woman
• die voertuig = the vehicle

The same word die is used very widely.

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. This is the basic Afrikaans main-clause word order:

Subject + Verb + Object

So:

• Hy = subject
• beheer = verb
• die voertuig = object

This is very similar to normal English word order in a simple statement.

Yes. Hy beheer die voertuig is in the present tense.

Depending on context, it can mean:

• He controls the vehicle
• He is controlling the vehicle

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:

• Hy: something like hay, but shorter
• beheer: roughly buh-HEER
• die: dee
• voertuig: roughly FOOR-take or FOOR-taykh, depending on accent

A few pronunciation notes:

• Afrikaans h is pronounced.
• ee in beheer is a long vowel.
• The g sound in Afrikaans is not like English g in go. It is usually a throaty sound, which many learners need time to get used to.

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:

• first nie goes after the verb
• second nie usually goes at the end of the clause

For a yes/no question, Afrikaans usually puts the verb first:

Beheer hy die voertuig?

That is the normal inversion pattern:

• statement: Hy beheer die voertuig.
• question: Beheer hy die voertuig?

This is similar to English word order changes in questions, though Afrikaans often does it more directly.