Die skrum begin nou.

Here die means the.

It is not pronounced like English die. In Afrikaans it is pronounced roughly like dee.

So Die skrum begin nou starts with dee.

No. Afrikaans does not use grammatical gender the way languages like German do.

The definite article is simply die for:

• masculine nouns
• feminine nouns
• neuter ideas
• singular nouns
• plural nouns

So learners do not have to memorize different forms of the.

Skrum is the Afrikaans word for scrum, the rugby term.

It is basically the same word as in English, just spelled the Afrikaans way. This is very common in sports vocabulary.

Afrikaans verbs usually do not change form in the present tense according to the subject.

So you get:

• ek begin = I begin
• jy begin = you begin
• hy begin = he begins
• ons begin = we begin

Unlike English, Afrikaans does not add an -s for he/she/it in the present tense.

Yes, in this simple main clause the order is very similar to English:

• Die skrum = the scrum
• begin = begins
• nou = now

So it follows a basic subject + verb + time word pattern.

That said, Afrikaans word order can change in other sentence types, especially when another element is moved to the front or in subordinate clauses.

Nou means now, and its position can sometimes move depending on emphasis.

In Die skrum begin nou, it comes after the verb, which is very natural.

You can also say:

• Nou begin die skrum.

This puts more emphasis on now. Both are possible, but the feel is slightly different:

• Die skrum begin nou = the scrum begins now
• Nou begin die skrum = now the scrum begins / now the scrum is starting

Yes. In many contexts, begin and English start match very closely.

So begin can often be translated as either:

• begin
• start

In a sentence like this, English could naturally say:

• The scrum begins now
• The scrum starts now

Both fit the Afrikaans sentence well.

A simple English-friendly approximation is:

dee skrum buh-GIN nou

A few notes:

• die sounds like dee
• skrum is close to English skrum, with a short vowel
• begin is stressed on the second syllable: be-GIN
• nou sounds like English now

So the whole sentence is approximately:

dee skrum buh-GIN now