Die tuin lyk pragtig.

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.

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.

Lyk is a linking verb here. It means something like:

• looks
• seems
• appears

So Die tuin lyk pragtig can feel like:

• The garden looks beautiful
• The garden seems beautiful
• The garden appears beautiful

In everyday English, looks beautiful is the most natural translation in this sentence.

Because pragtig comes after the verb lyk and describes the subject in a predicate position.

In Afrikaans, adjectives often behave differently depending on where they appear:

• Die tuin lyk pragtig.
  Here the adjective is after the verb, so it stays pragtig.

• 'n pragtige tuin
  Here the adjective comes before the noun, so it usually takes -e and becomes pragtige.

This is a very common pattern in Afrikaans:

• Die huis is groot.
• 'n groot huis

But with some adjectives, the form changes in more noticeable ways. For this sentence, the important thing is: after lyk, use pragtig, not pragtige.

Die means the.

A helpful thing for English speakers is that Afrikaans does not use grammatical gender in the article the way Dutch or German does. So die is used very broadly.

For example:

• die tuin = the garden
• die man = the man
• die vrou = the woman
• die kinders = the children

So you do not have to memorize different forms of the for masculine, feminine, or neuter nouns.

Yes. This is the normal order for a simple main clause:

Subject + verb + rest

So:

• Die tuin = subject
• lyk = finite verb
• pragtig = complement

Afrikaans main clauses generally follow a verb-second pattern. In a basic sentence like this, that looks the same as English.

If something else comes first, the verb still stays in second position:

• Vandag lyk die tuin pragtig. = Today the garden looks beautiful.

That is a very useful Afrikaans rule to get used to.

A rough English-friendly guide would be:

• die ≈ dee
• tuin ≈ something like tayn, but with a more rounded vowel
• lyk ≈ roughly lake, but not exactly the same vowel as English
• pragtig ≈ PRAKH-təkh, with a guttural g sound, like the ch in Scottish loch

A few pronunciation notes:

• The g in pragtig is not a normal English g. It is usually a guttural sound.
• The vowels in tuin and lyk do not match English perfectly, so any English spelling is only approximate.

You would say:

'n pragtige tuin

Notice the difference:

• Die tuin lyk pragtig.
• 'n pragtige tuin

This shows the same important grammar point:

• after the verb: pragtig
• before the noun: pragtige

You would say:

Die tuin lyk nie pragtig nie.

Afrikaans usually uses a double nie in standard negation:

• the first nie comes after the verb phrase or later in the clause
• the second nie usually comes at the end of the clause

So:

• Die tuin lyk pragtig. = The garden looks beautiful.
• Die tuin lyk nie pragtig nie. = The garden does not look beautiful.

This double-negative structure is one of the most distinctive features of Afrikaans.

Yes. You could say:

Die tuin lyk mooi.

That would usually mean The garden looks pretty / beautiful / nice.

The difference is mainly one of strength and tone:

• mooi = pretty, nice, beautiful
• pragtig = beautiful, splendid, gorgeous, more emphatic

So pragtig sounds stronger and more expressive than mooi.

It can do both.

With a sentence like Die tuin lyk pragtig, it often means the garden looks beautiful in appearance.

But lyk can also mean seem or appear more generally, for example:

• Dit lyk reg. = That seems right.
• Hy lyk moeg. = He looks / seems tired.

So it is a very useful verb, not just for visual description.