Die water is diep.

Here, die means the.

A very common beginner mistake is to read it like the English verb die, but in Afrikaans die is usually just the definite article the.

In this sentence, die water = the water.

No. Afrikaans does not use grammatical gender the way some other European languages do.

Die is the normal definite article for nouns in general, so you use it for:

• singular nouns
• plural nouns
• all genders

So die water simply means the water. You do not need to learn a different word for the depending on gender.

Yes. Water in Afrikaans is a clear cognate of English water. They look very similar and mean the same thing.

The main difference for learners is pronunciation:

• Afrikaans w sounds like English v
• so water is said more like VAH-ter than English WAW-ter

Afrikaans and English are closely related Germanic languages, so some very common words look alike. Is is one of them.

In this sentence, is means is:

• Die water is diep = The water is deep

A useful thing to know is that Afrikaans does not conjugate is in the present tense the way English changes am / is / are. Afrikaans uses is for all persons:

• ek is = I am
• jy is = you are
• hy is = he is
• ons is = we are
• hulle is = they are

Because it is the adjective describing the subject after the verb is.

The structure is:

• Die water = subject
• is = verb
• diep = adjective/complement

This is very similar to English:

• The water is deep

So the word order here is straightforward and matches normal English sentence order quite closely.

Yes. Diep and deep are cognates.

That is why they look and feel so similar:

• Afrikaans diep
• English deep

This kind of similarity is very common between Afrikaans and English, especially with short everyday words.

A rough English-friendly pronunciation is:

dee VAH-ter is deep

A few helpful notes:

• die sounds like dee
• water begins with a v sound, not an English w
• diep is close to English deep

So:

• Die water is diep ≈ dee VAH-ter is deep

Usually, in a sentence like this, die water means some specific water already understood from the situation: the water.

If you remove die, you change the feel of the sentence. Water is diep would not normally be the most natural way to say The water is deep.

So for the sentence you were given, keep:

• Die water is diep

That is the normal way to say The water is deep.

In this sentence, no. After is, the adjective stays in its basic form: diep.

So:

• Die water is diep = The water is deep

When Afrikaans adjectives are used directly before nouns, their form can sometimes behave differently depending on the adjective and the construction. But in a sentence like this, after is, you just use the basic form diep.

It is capitalized only because it is the first word of the sentence.

Afrikaans does not capitalize all nouns the way German does. So:

• Die water is diep.

Only Die has a capital letter here because the sentence starts with it. water and diep stay lowercase.