Die winkel het 'n groot verskeidenheid.

to have

Breakdown of Die winkel het 'n groot verskeidenheid.

• 'n: a
• die winkel: the store
• groot: large

Questions & Answers about Die winkel het 'n groot verskeidenheid.

What does die mean here, and does Afrikaans have grammatical gender?

Here die means the.

A useful thing for English speakers to know is that Afrikaans does not have grammatical gender in the way German or Dutch does. You do not need different forms of the for masculine, feminine, or neuter nouns. So:

• die winkel = the store
• die man = the man
• die vrou = the woman

Afrikaans also uses die for plural the as well, so it is a very common and flexible word.

Why is 'n written with an apostrophe, and how do you pronounce it?

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

A few important points:

• It is always written as 'n
• It is usually pronounced like a very short, unstressed uh
• It is normally not emphasized in speech

So in this sentence:

• 'n groot verskeidenheid = a large/wide variety

A special writing rule: even at the beginning of a sentence, Afrikaans still writes 'n, not a capitalized form. So you would write 'n Winkel..., not 'N Winkel...

Why is the verb het used here?