Daar is 'n verband tussen tarief en verbruik.

Yes — in this sentence Daar is means there is in the existential sense, not necessarily a physical location.

So:

• Daar is 'n verband ... = There is a connection ...

This is very common in Afrikaans. Compare:

• Daar is 'n probleem. = There is a problem.
• Daar is baie mense hier. = There are many people here.

Sometimes daar really does mean a place (there), but in this sentence it is just part of the pattern Daar is = there is / there are.

'n is the Afrikaans indefinite article, equivalent to English a or an.

So:

• 'n verband = a connection / a relationship

A few important points:

• It is written with just an apostrophe and n: 'n
• It is not capitalized, even at the beginning of a sentence in normal usage
• It is usually pronounced as a very weak vowel sound, like uh / ə

So 'n verband sounds roughly like uh fur-bant.

Verband usually means connection, relationship, or link.

In this sentence:

• Daar is 'n verband tussen tarief en verbruik.
• = There is a relationship/link between tariff(rate) and consumption.

Be careful: verband can also mean bandage in some contexts, so the meaning depends on the sentence. Here, because of tussen ... en ... (between ... and ...), it clearly means a conceptual connection or relationship.

Tussen means between, and en means and.

So the pattern is:

• tussen X en Y = between X and Y

In your sentence:

• tussen tarief en verbruik
• = between tariff/rate and consumption

This is a very direct match with English structure.

Examples:

• tussen Pretoria en Johannesburg = between Pretoria and Johannesburg
• tussen werk en huis = between work and home

In Afrikaans, abstract or general nouns often appear without an article, just as they often do in English.

Here the sentence is talking about the general concepts:

• tarief = tariff / rate
• verbruik = consumption / usage

So:

• tussen tarief en verbruik
• = between tariff and consumption

If you wanted to refer to specific ones, you could use die:

• tussen die tarief en die verbruik
• = between the tariff and the consumption

But in your sentence, the general, article-less version sounds natural.

Tarief can mean tariff, rate, or price rate, depending on context.

Possible translations include:

• tariff
• rate
• fee rate
• pricing level

So in a utility, business, or economics context, tarief might refer to the rate charged for electricity, water, phone usage, etc.

The exact English word depends on the situation, but the Afrikaans word itself is perfectly normal here.

Here verbruik is a noun, meaning consumption or usage.

So:

• verbruik = consumption / use / usage

The related verb is also verbruik, meaning to consume / to use up, but in this sentence it is clearly a noun because it appears after tussen ... en ... as one of the things being compared.

Examples:

• waterverbruik = water consumption
• elektrisiteitsverbruik = electricity consumption

It is quite straightforward. The sentence structure is:

• Daar is = there is
• 'n verband = a connection
• tussen tarief en verbruik = between tariff/rate and consumption

So literally:

• There is a connection between tariff and consumption.

This is a standard Afrikaans sentence pattern. Nothing unusual is happening with inversion or subordinate-clause word order.

A rough English-friendly pronunciation would be:

Daar is uh fur-bant tus-sun tah-reef en fur-broyk

Very approximate breakdown:

• Daar ≈ daahr
• is ≈ iss
• 'n ≈ uh
• verband ≈ fur-BANT
• tussen ≈ TUS-sun
• tarief ≈ tah-REEF
• en ≈ en / uhn (often reduced in speech)
• verbruik ≈ fur-BROYK

A few pronunciation notes:

• v in Afrikaans often sounds close to English f
• g is not present here, so this sentence is relatively friendly for beginners
• ui is a special Afrikaans/Dutch-like vowel sound, and in verbruik it may be the trickiest part

Yes, you probably could, but verband is usually the safer and more natural choice for a general connection/link/relationship between two things.

• verband = connection, link, relation
• verhouding = relationship, ratio, proportion, or interpersonal relationship depending on context

Because verhouding can have other shades of meaning, verband often sounds clearer in a sentence like this.

So:

• Daar is 'n verband tussen tarief en verbruik.
  is a very good, natural phrasing.

Because Daar is is the normal everyday way to say there is in Afrikaans.

You could sometimes use bestaan in more formal or abstract contexts, but it would not be the most natural basic phrasing here.

Compare:

• Daar is 'n verband ... = There is a connection ...
• 'n Verband bestaan ... = A connection exists ...

The second version is more formal or academic in tone. The original sentence is simpler and more idiomatic for general use.

Not as written. The sentence has:

• is = is
• 'n verband = a connection

So it is singular:

• There is a connection ...

If you wanted the plural, you would say:

• Daar is verbande tussen tarief en verbruik.
• = There are connections between tariff and consumption.

So the original sentence presents the relationship as one general link, not several separate ones.

Here is the literal breakdown:

• Daar = there
• is = is
• 'n = a
• verband = connection / relationship / link
• tussen = between
• tarief = tariff / rate
• en = and
• verbruik = consumption / usage

So the full literal reading is:

• There is a connection between tariff and consumption.

That is both the literal structure and the natural meaning in English.