Die boerewors is lekker.

to be

Breakdown of Die boerewors is lekker.

• lekker: tasty
• die boerewors: the boerewors

Questions & Answers about Die boerewors is lekker.

Why does the sentence start with die? Does it mean the?

Yes. die is the Afrikaans definite article, and in this sentence it means the.

A useful difference from English is that Afrikaans uses die for:

• singular nouns: die hond = the dog
• plural nouns: die honde = the dogs

So unlike English, and unlike Dutch or German, the article does not change for gender.

Is boerewors singular or plural here?

Here, boerewors is being used as a singular mass noun, like sausage or bread in English when you mean it in a general sense.

So Die boerewors is lekker means the sausage / the boerewors is tasty, not are tasty.

Even though the word may look unfamiliar, the verb is shows that the noun is being treated as singular here.

What does boerewors literally mean?

Boerewors literally comes from:

• boer = farmer
• wors = sausage

So the literal sense is farmer’s sausage, but in practice boerewors is the name of a specific South African sausage, and it is usually best understood as a food name rather than translated word-for-word every time.