Learn some common noun prefixes in Afrikaans
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Intro |
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| Antoni: What are some noun prefixes in Afrikaans? |
| Dewan: And why are they useful to know? |
| Antoni: At AfrikaansPod101.com, we hear these questions often. Imagine a scenario where Sasha Lee and Carolina Van der Merwe are in class. Sasha Lee is reading a book. She sees an unfamiliar word and asks her classmate, Carolina Van der Merwe, |
| "What does [misperception] mean?" |
| Sasha Lee: Wat beteken "wanpersepsie?" |
| Dialogue |
| Sasha Lee: Wat beteken "wanpersepsie?" |
| Carolina Van der Merwe: "Wan" beteken "verkeerd" en "persepsie" beteken "waarneming." |
| Dewan: Once more with the English translation. |
| Sasha Lee: Wat beteken "wanpersepsie?" |
| Dewan: "What does [misperception] mean?" |
| Carolina Van der Merwe: "Wan" beteken "verkeerd" en "persepsie" beteken "waarneming." |
| Antoni: "Wan" means "wrong" and "persepsie" means "perception." |
Lesson focus |
| Antoni: In this lesson, you will be learning about Afrikaans noun prefixes and why they are useful to know. |
| A prefix, or |
| Dewan: voorvoegsel |
| Antoni: is a small language item that is not a word in itself, but, when attached to the front of another word, can modify the meaning of that word. A simple example is if we take the word "appear" and add the prefix "dis" to it. |
| On its own, "appear" means to become visible, to come into sight. By adding the prefix "dis," it becomes a word with the opposite meaning. |
| As was mentioned previously, we will be discussing Afrikaans noun prefixes in this lesson, and you might be relieved to learn that there are not that many. You already heard an example of one of these in the dialogue and we will discuss it in a moment, after quickly reviewing the dialogue. |
| [Recall 1] |
| Antoni: Do you remember how Sasha says |
| Dewan: "What does "wanpersepsie" mean?" |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Dewan as Sasha Lee: Wat beteken "wanpersepsie?" |
| [Recall 2] |
| Antoni: And do you remember how Carolina says |
| Dewan: ""Wan" means "wrong" and "persepsie" means "perception?" |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Dewan as Carolina Van der Merwe: "Wan" beteken "verkeerd" en "persepsie" beteken "waarneming." |
| Antoni: As Carolina points out in her answer, the prefix |
| Dewan: wan |
| Antoni: means "wrong." It is a negative prefix which can be likened, to some extent, to a prefix like "mis" in English. Compare the words "understanding" and "misunderstanding," and it becomes clear that the meaning of the prefix "mis," in this context, also means "wrong." The Afrikaans word that Sasha is asking Carolina about is |
| Dewan: wanpersepsie. |
| Antoni: This word consists of two parts. The first is the prefix, with which we are already familiar, and the second is the stem |
| Dewan: persepsie |
| Antoni: which means "perception." The result of combining these is a new word, meaning "misperception." Words prefixed in this way in Afrikaans don’t always translate to English words that use "mis" as their prefix. Consider, for instance, the Afrikaans word |
| Dewan: wanhoop. |
| Antoni: This word consists of the prefix we already know, and the word |
| Dewan: hoop |
| Antoni: which means "hope." The combination of the prefix and the stem form a word that translates to "despair" in English. You may have noticed that, in this case, the Afrikaans prefix does not mean "wrong," but it is still a way of negating a noun. It can also sometimes be translated into English words with a different negating prefix, such as the prefix "dis" in the word "distrust." The Afrikaans verb meaning "to distrust" is |
| Dewan: wantrou. |
| Antoni: The Afrikaans noun for "distrust" or "mistrust" is: |
| Dewan: wantroue. |
| Antoni: Interestingly, Afrikaans also has words that begin with |
| Dewan: mis. |
| Antoni: This prefix carries the same meaning in Afrikaans as it does in English—it negates the word that it is modifying. In Afrikaans, many of the nouns beginning with this prefix are gerunds. Let’s take the verb |
| Dewan: misverstaan |
| Antoni: for example. It means "to misunderstand" and it is composed of the verb stem |
| Dewan: verstaan |
| Antoni: "to understand," and the prefix |
| Dewan: mis |
| Antoni: the noun, or gerund form of this word is |
| Dewan: misverstand, |
| Antoni: and it translates to the noun "misunderstanding." Compare this to the difference between the English verb "misunderstand" and its gerund form: "misunderstanding." |
| We’ll look at some more prefixes in a moment, after a brief review of what we have learned thus far. |
| [Summary] |
| Antoni: In this lesson, you have learned that there are a number of noun prefixes in Afrikaans. These are useful to know because, once you know what the prefixes mean, they can tell you more about a word you might not yet know. Just a reminder that a prefix is a small language item that is not a word in itself, but, when attached to the front of another word, can modify the meaning of that word. |
| So far we’ve focused on negative noun prefixes, so now let’s look at some other noun prefixes as well. |
| We can start with the prefix |
| Dewan: ge. |
| Antoni: This prefix is most often used with the past tense and is usually attached to a verb stem, forming the past participle. However, it can also, sometimes, be used to form nouns. If, for example, we take the word |
| Dewan: spreek |
| Antoni: which is an archaic form that means "to speak." When we add this prefix to it, we get the noun |
| Dewan: gesprek |
| Antoni: which means "conversation." Another example of this prefix being used to form a noun is if one takes the Afrikaans verb meaning "to fight," which is |
| Dewan: veg |
| Antoni: and add the prefix to it to form the noun |
| Dewan: geveg |
| Antoni: which means "fight." Interestingly, this word can be both the past participle of the verb and a noun. As a verb, it can be used in a sentence like |
| Dewan: Hy het goed geveg |
| Antoni: which means "he fought well." To turn this same word into a noun, use it together with an article, such as "a" or "the," in a sentence. |
| Dewan: ‘n Geveg het uitgebreek |
| Antoni: meaning "a fight broke out." |
| Although we have discussed a few negative prefixes, there is another negating prefix which you should know about, and that is |
| Dewan: on. |
| Antoni: It is used in much the same way as the English prefix "un" is used. For instance, the Afrikaans word for "unknown" is |
| Dewan: onbekend. |
| Antoni: That word translates easily, but there are others with this prefix that don’t translate that directly. Take this word for example: |
| Dewan: ondier. |
| Antoni: It translates, literally, to "bad animal," but you could imagine it in English as "un-animal" and it denotes a "beast" or a "monster." |
| There are other words that might seem like they begin with this same prefix, but they actually don’t. Listen to this word, for instance: |
| Dewan: ondersoek. |
| Antoni: It starts with the same sound, but the actual prefix in this case is |
| Dewan: onder |
| Antoni: which means "under." It is modifying the verb |
| Dewan: soek |
| Antoni: which means "seek" or "search." This word, with the prefix attached, means "investigation." Another word that uses this prefix is the word |
| Dewan: onderbreek |
| Antoni: which translates directly to "under-break," and it means "interrupt." There is also a noun prefix in Afrikaans that means "primordial" or "primeval." It sounds like this: |
| Dewan: oer. |
| Antoni: When attached to a word like |
| Dewan: woud |
| Antoni: which means "forest" or "woods," it becomes |
| Dewan: oerwoud |
| Antoni: which directly translates to "primordial forest" but means "jungle." It can also be attached to the Afrikaans word meaning "bang," which is |
| Dewan: knal |
| Antoni: In this case, the new word that is formed is |
| Dewan: oerknal, |
| Antoni: and it translates directly to "primordial bang." You will, no doubt, have guessed that this means "big bang," of course. |
| And that concludes this lesson. |
Outro |
| Antoni: Do you have any more questions? We’re here to answer them! |
| Dewan: Totsiens! |
| Antoni: See you soon! |
| Credits: Dewan (Afrikaans, Pietermaritzburg), Antoni (English, synthetic voice) |
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