Die tuin lyk pragtig.

The garden looks beautiful.

Breakdown of Die tuin lyk pragtig.

• die tuin: the garden
• lyk: to seem
• pragtig: visually beautiful; magnificent

Questions & Answers about Die tuin lyk pragtig.

What does each word in Die tuin lyk pragtig mean?

Word by word:

• die = the
• tuin = garden
• lyk = looks / seems / appears
• pragtig = beautiful / lovely / splendid

So the sentence is built very straightforwardly: the + garden + looks + beautiful.

Why is the verb lyk the same no matter who the subject is? Shouldn’t it change like English looks?

In Afrikaans, present-tense verbs usually do not change according to the subject.

So you get:

• ek lyk = I look / seem
• jy lyk = you look / seem
• hy lyk = he looks / seems
• die tuin lyk = the garden looks / seems
• ons lyk = we look / seem

That is much simpler than English, where you have look but looks in the third person singular.

What exactly does lyk mean here?