Learn how to say "no" in Afrikaans
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Intro |
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| Antoni: How do you say "no" in Afrikaans? |
| Dewan: And what is a double negative? |
| Antoni: At AfrikaansPod101.com, we hear these questions often. Imagine this scenario: Rita Dexter is chatting casually with her daughter, Lynne, and asks, |
| "Did you go out with your friends?" |
| Rita Dexter: Het jy saam met jou vriende uitgegaan? |
| Dialogue |
| Rita Dexter: Het jy saam met jou vriende uitgegaan? |
| Lynne Dexter: Nee, ek het nie saam met hulle uitgegaan nie. |
| Antoni: Once more with the English translation. |
| Rita Dexter: Het jy saam met jou vriende uitgegaan? |
| Antoni: "Did you go out with your friends?" |
| Lynne Dexter: Nee, ek het nie saam met hulle uitgegaan nie. |
| Antoni: "No, I did not go out with them." |
Lesson focus |
| Antoni: In this lesson, you will be learning how to say "no" in Afrikaans, and we will discuss what a double negative is. In Afrikaans, when a negative sentence is formed, you will usually find that the word |
| Dewan: nie, |
| Antoni: or "not," occurs at least once or, very often, twice in a sentence. There are, of course, other negating words, but we’ll look at one or two of those a bit later. Let’s start with sentences in which we are likely to find only one negating term meaning "not," or |
| Dewan: nie. |
| Antoni: You will usually see or hear this only in simple statement sentences, meaning sentences that contain only a subject and a verb. Take this one, meaning "The cat runs," for instance: |
| Dewan: Die kat hardloop. |
| Antoni: In order to negate it, all we have to do is add the negative word "not" to the end of the sentence: |
| Dewan: Die kat hardloop nie. |
| Antoni: The literal translation of this is: "The cat runs not." Here’s another example: |
| Dewan: Die kind sing. |
| Antoni: This means: "The child sings," and the negative version of it is: |
| Dewan: Die kind sing nie, |
| Antoni: which, of course, means, "The child does not sing." It's as easy as a "not joke." This kind of negation is really quite simple, and it stays simple when the object of the verb is a pronoun as well. For example, the negative version of |
| Dewan: Ek eet dit, |
| Antoni: or, "I eat it," becomes |
| Dewan: Ek eet dit nie. |
| Antoni: Naturally, this means "I don’t eat it." Let’s try it with a different pronoun. This time we’ll start with the sentence meaning "She sees him:" |
| Dewan: Sy sien hom. |
| Antoni: And now we’ll say, "She doesn’t see him:" |
| Dewan: Sy sien hom nie. |
| Antoni: It really isn’t very difficult to remember where to put the word |
| Dewan: nie |
| Antoni: in these kinds of sentences because it always comes at the end of the sentence! |
| For other sentence structures, things get a little more complicated, but not too much so. As was mentioned earlier, sometimes you might see or hear the word |
| Dewan: nie |
| Antoni: twice in a negative sentence. This phenomenon is called "double negation," or "multiple negation." In Afrikaans, it's called: |
| Dewan: dubbel negatief. |
| Michae: Languages such as Afrikaans, where this kind of negation is common, are called negative-concord languages. It's not really found in English, except in slang such as, "That won’t do us no good." |
| While this kind of construction is acceptable in slang, it's not so when it comes to conventional English grammar. In fact, the two negatives in the sentence: "That won’t do us no good," cancel each other out so that the sentence actually comes to mean: "That will do us good." In Afrikaans, however, two negatives don’t cancel each other out. Instead, they affirm each other. Earlier we talked about how we only use one |
| Dewan: nie |
| Antoni: when the sentence consists only of a verb and a subject. Let’s now make a slightly more complex sentence and see what happens when we negate it. We’ll start with a sentence that contains a subject, a verb, and an object: |
| Dewan: Ek studeer Afrikaans. |
| Antoni: This means "I study Afrikaans." Now, let’s turn it into a negative sentence: |
| Dewan: Ek studeer nie Afrikaans nie. |
| Antoni: This means "I don’t study Afrikaans," and, as you could hear, the first |
| Dewan: nie |
| Antoni: immediately followed the verb |
| Dewan: studeer, |
| Antoni: which means "study." Here’s another example of a sentence containing a double negative: |
| Dewan: Die kar is nie blou nie. |
| Antoni: This means: "The car is not blue." In the case of this sentence, the "to be" verb |
| Dewan: is |
| Antoni: was used, and the first negative word came directly after it. The rule for double negation does not change for different verbs. However, if the sentence contains a verb and an auxiliary or modal verb, for instance, then the placing of the first "not" does change. Let’s look at an example using a modal verb: |
| Dewan: Sy kan sien. |
| Antoni: This means "She can see," and the modal verb is |
| Dewan: kan |
| Antoni: or "can." Now, if we want to negate this sentence, we have to place the first |
| Dewan: nie |
| Antoni: between the two elements of the verb construction: |
| Dewan: Sy kan nie sien nie. |
| Antoni: This sentence means: "She can’t see." It translates directly to: "She can not see not." It might be helpful to compare this practice with English because, in English, we also separate the modal verb and the main verb with the negative word. For instance, "She can see" becomes "She can not see." Of course, the big difference is that, in English, there is no repeated negative at the end of the sentence. |
| In Afrikaans, if there is a pronoun involved, then the negating word must precede the verb and immediately follow the pronoun. Here is an example: |
| Dewan: Sy kan hom nie sien nie. |
| Antoni: This translates directly to: "She can him not see not" and, of course, it means "She cannot see him." |
| Just as in other languages, there are other negative words in Afrikaans as well. Fortunately, understanding where to place them in a negative sentence isn’t that difficult. Let’s take the Afrikaans word for "nothing," or |
| Dewan: niks, |
| Antoni: and put it in a negative sentence. We’ll use a sentence meaning "She can see nothing:" |
| Dewan: Sy kan niks sien nie. |
| Antoni: The direct translation of this sentence is: "She can nothing see not." The negative word is placed where, previously, we placed the first |
| Dewan: nie. |
| Antoni: In other words, it comes directly after the verb. Note that, just as with our previous negative sentences, there is still a |
| Dewan: nie |
| Antoni: at the end of the sentence. This is, therefore, another form of double negation. Another negative word in Afrikaans is |
| Dewan: niemand, |
| Antoni: which means "nobody" or "no one." Now, let’s hear it in a negative sentence meaning: "There was no one there." |
| Dewan: Daar was niemand daar nie. |
| Antoni: The direct translation of this sentence is: "There was no one there not." Again, as you can hear, the first negative word was placed directly after the verb, and the second one at the end of the sentence. The rules for double negation stay the same, no matter which negative word you are using. |
| [Recall 1] |
| Antoni: Let’s take a closer look at the dialogue. Do you remember how Rita asks Lynne "Did you go out with your friends?" |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Dewan as Rita Dexter: Het jy saam met jou vriende uitgegaan? |
| Antoni: There's no negative form in this sentence. |
| [Recall 2] |
| Antoni: Now, let’s take a look at our second sentence. |
| Do you remember how Lynne says "No, I didn't go out with them?" |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Dewan as Lynne Dexter: Nee, ek het nie saam met hulle uitgegaan nie. |
| Antoni: In this sentence, Lynne has used two verbs. She used |
| Dewan: het |
| Antoni: or "have" and |
| Dewan: uitgegaan, |
| Antoni: meaning "went out." Fortunately, double negation, in a situation such as this, is still quite simple. The first negative word follows the first verb, and the second negative word comes at the end of the sentence. |
| [Summary] |
| Antoni: In this lesson, you learned how to form negative sentences in Afrikaans. We discussed how to form simple negative sentences with the negating word |
| Dewan: nie |
| Antoni: at the end of the sentence, and we learned that, when there are two negative words in a sentence, then the first negative word comes directly after the verb and the second one is always found at the end of the sentence. |
| Expansion/Contrast (Optional) |
| Antoni: The only thing we have not yet discussed is how to actually say "no" in Afrikaans. Now that you know how to create negative sentences, learning how to say "no" will be really easy. In Afrikaans, the word "no" or |
| Dewan: nee |
| Antoni: comes at the beginning of the sentence. Here’s an example of someone saying, "No, I did not see him.:" |
| Dewan: Nee, ek het hom nie gesien nie. |
| Antoni: The direct translation of this sentence is "No, I have him not seen not." Sometimes, as with English, one can put the final "no" at the end of the sentence, almost as an afterthought, but this is relatively unusual. Here’s an example: |
| Dewan: Ek het nog nie geslaap nie, nee. |
| Antoni: This means "I have not slept yet, no." If you are unsure, it’s best to simply put the Afrikaans word for "no" at the beginning of the sentence. |
| Cultural Insight/Expansion (Optional) |
| Antoni: Sometimes, saying "no" to someone can be seen as a little rude, so if you want to make sure that the person you are talking to does not take offense, you can add a polite "sorry" at the end of your sentence. Here’s an example: |
| Dewan: Nee, ek kan jou nie help nie, jammer. |
| Antoni: This means, "No, I can’t help you, sorry." We can also put the word for "sorry" at the beginning of the sentence, and simply exclude the word for "no:" |
| Dewan: Jammer, ek kan jou nie help nie. |
| Antoni: This means, "Sorry, I can’t help you." Of course, even a sentence like this can seem a little abrupt or dismissive. If you want to be doubly sure that the person you are talking to really understands that you are sorry, you can say "I am really sorry, but I can’t help you:" |
| Dewan: Ek is baie jammer, maar ek kan jou nie help nie. |
| Antoni: As with any kind of expression, how you say it is just as important as what you say, so be sure to keep your attitude polite as well. |
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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