Talle mense wag.

Talle means many or numerous. It is correct and fairly common, but it sounds a little more formal or written than baie in some contexts.

So:

• Talle mense wag. = Many people are waiting.
• Baie mense wag. also works and is often more everyday.

A learner will probably see both, but talle is a useful word to know because it appears often in writing, news, and formal speech.

Because mense is the plural of mens.

• mens = person / human
• mense = people

This is an irregular-looking plural from an English speaker’s point of view, so it is best learned as a vocabulary item.

Examples:

• Die mens is feilbaar. = The human being is fallible.
• Die mense is moeg. = The people are tired.

Afrikaans usually does not use a separate present-tense form of to be the way English does in sentences like People are waiting.

Instead, Afrikaans simply uses the main verb:

• Mense wag. = People wait / People are waiting

So wag by itself can express both a simple present idea and a present continuous idea, depending on context.

This is very normal in Afrikaans.

No. In Afrikaans, verbs generally do not change form according to the subject in the present tense.

Compare:

• Ek wag. = I wait / am waiting
• Jy wag. = You wait / are waiting
• Hy wag. = He waits / is waiting
• Ons wag. = We wait / are waiting
• Hulle wag. = They wait / are waiting

The verb stays wag in all these examples. This is much simpler than English.

This is the normal word order for a simple main clause in Afrikaans:

subject + verb

Here:

• Talle mense = the subject
• wag = the verb

So the sentence structure is straightforward.

However, Afrikaans is a verb-second language in main clauses. That means if another element comes first, the verb still stays in second position:

• Talle mense wag.
• Vandag wag talle mense. = Today many people are waiting.

Notice that after Vandag, the verb wag comes before talle mense.

Yes, absolutely.

• Talle mense wag.
• Baie mense wag.

Both are correct and natural. The difference is mostly one of style and nuance:

• baie = very common, everyday many/a lot of
• talle = many/numerous, sometimes slightly more formal or emphatic

In many situations, they are interchangeable.

Not always.

In Talle mense wag, wag is used on its own, meaning simply wait / are waiting.

But if you want to say what they are waiting for, Afrikaans usually uses vir:

• Talle mense wag vir die bus. = Many people are waiting for the bus.
• Ek wag vir jou. = I am waiting for you.

So:

• wag = wait
• wag vir ... = wait for ...

It can mean both wait and are waiting, depending on context.

Afrikaans often uses the simple verb form where English chooses either:

• simple present: wait
• present continuous: are waiting

So Talle mense wag can mean:

• Many people wait
  or, more naturally in many contexts,
• Many people are waiting

The exact English translation depends on the situation.

A rough guide for an English speaker is:

• Talle ≈ TAH-luh
• mense ≈ MEN-suh
• wag ≈ something like vakh or wakh, with a throaty final sound not found in standard English

A few notes:

• a in talle is a short vowel
• e at the end of talle and mense is usually a weak uh sound
• g in wag is the Afrikaans guttural g/ch sound

Pronunciation varies a bit by accent, but that is a useful starting point.

Yes, in normal use talle goes with a plural noun, because it means many / numerous.

So:

• talle mense = many people
• talle boeke = many books
• talle probleme = many problems

Using talle with a singular noun would generally be incorrect.

Yes. If you want to say the many people or refer to a specific group, you can use die:

• Die talle mense wag.

But in the basic sentence Talle mense wag, no article is needed. It simply means many people are waiting in a general sense.