Learn about word word order in Afrikaans
Now Playing: Lesson Audio
Get a breakdown of the dialogue and translations instantly with the Premium line-by-line Audio. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Get this lesson’s key vocab, their translations and pronunciations. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Unlock Lesson Notes and Transcripts for every single lesson. Sign Up for a Free Lifetime Account and Get 7 Days of Premium Access.
Intro |
|---|
| Antoni: How are sentences structured in Afrikaans? |
| Dewan: And are the rules rigid? |
| Antoni: At AfrikaansPod101.com, we hear these questions often. Imagine this scenario: Sasha Lee greets Carolina Van der Merwe, a new classmate at her language school, and starts chatting with her. She says: |
| "I study Afrikaans, and you?" |
| Sasha Lee: Ek studeer Afrikaans, en jy? |
| Dialogue |
| Sasha Lee: Ek studeer Afrikaans, en jy? |
| Carolina Van der Merwe: Ek studeer Afrikaans en Frans. |
| Antoni: Once more with the English translation. |
| Sasha Lee: Ek studeer Afrikaans, en jy? |
| Antoni: "I study Afrikaans, and you?" |
| Carolina Van der Merwe: Ek studeer Afrikaans en Frans. |
| Antoni: "I study Afrikaans and French." |
Lesson focus |
| Antoni: In this lesson, you will be learning how sentences are structured in Afrikaans and whether the rules are rigid or not. You heard a simple sentence in the dialogue, where Sasha Lee says: |
| Dewan: Ek studeer Afrikaans, en jy? |
| Antoni: Carolina responds with |
| Dewan: Ek studeer Afrikaans en Frans. |
| Antoni: You might have noticed that both interlocutors used the same three words to begin their sentence: |
| Dewan: Ek studeer Afrikaans.... |
| Antoni: This is because both speakers were using an S-V-O, or subject-verb-object structure to compose their sentences. First, they mentioned the subject |
| Dewan: ek |
| Antoni: or "I," and this was followed by the verb, "study" or |
| Dewan: studeer— |
| Antoni: then came the object |
| Dewan: Afrikaans. |
| Antoni: Afrikaans is like English in this way, but, interestingly, this is not the most common sentence structure for languages. Most languages in the world are actually subject-object-verb languages. |
| Let’s now explore Afrikaans sentence structure a bit more. We’ll start by looking at the dialogue again. |
| [Recall 1] |
| Antoni: Do you remember how Sasha says "I study Afrikaans, and you?" |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Dewan: Ek studeer Afrikaans, en jy? |
| Antoni: As mentioned before, this sentence follows the subject-verb-object pattern. The subject is usually found at the beginning of the sentence, and it is what the sentence is about. In other words, if you ask "Who?" or "What?," then the answer is the subject of the sentence. For example, if we ask, "Who is studying Afrikaans?," then the answer is |
| Dewan: ek |
| Antoni: "I," because the original sentence was: |
| Dewan: Ek studeer Afrikaans. |
| Antoni: "I am studying Afrikaans." The verb is the action of the sentence, and the object is that which is being acted on, or that which is receiving the action. In this case, the verb is |
| Dewan: studeer |
| Antoni: meaning "studying," and the object is |
| Dewan: Afrikaans |
| Antoni: or "Afrikaans." |
| [Recall 2] |
| Antoni: Now, let’s take a look at our second sentence. |
| Do you remember how Carolina says, "I study Afrikaans and French?" |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Dewan: Ek studeer Afrikaans en Frans. |
| Antoni: In this reply, there are two objects, but that makes no difference to the basic structure of the sentence. Even when sentences get more complex, the subject-verb-object structure does not change. If there are two verbs in the sentence, then the first verb is always the second element in the sentence. Here’s an example, meaning, "She studied Afrikaans:" |
| Dewan: Sy het Afrikaans gestudeer. |
| Antoni: The first verb is an auxiliary verb: |
| Dewan: het, |
| Antoni: which roughly means "has" in English, and the second verb is: |
| Dewan: gestudeer, |
| Antoni: which means "studied." As you can hear, the first verb was still the second element in the sentence. This is always the case, barring two exceptions—questions and commands. Just like in English, Afrikaans questions and commands can often be formed by starting the sentence with the verb. Here’s an example of a question: |
| Dewan: Studeer jy Afrikaans? |
| Antoni: This means "Are you studying Afrikaans?," but the literal translation is, "Study you Afrikaans?" Now, let’s hear an example of a command with the verb in the first position in the sentence: |
| Dewan: Oefen jou Afrikaans! |
| Antoni: This translates directly to "Practice your Afrikaans!" |
| Let’s quickly review what we have learned so far, and then we can look at a very simple way to construct more complex sentences in Afrikaans. |
| [Summary] |
| Antoni: In this lesson, so far, you have learned that Afrikaans is a subject-verb-object language and that this structure is quite rigid. The first verb is always the second element in the sentence, unless it is being used in a question or a command, where the verb comes first. |
| Expansion/Contrast |
| Antoni: There is a simple way to remember how to structure more complex Afrikaans sentences, and that is to use a mnemonic device. A mnemonic device is something that helps you to remember something else. In this case, the mnemonic device we will be using is an acronym: STOMPI. This consists of the letters "S-T-O-M-P and I," and it stands for the different elements of a typical sentence in the order they will occur: "Subject," "Time," "Object," "Manner," "Place," and "Infinitive." |
| Many sentences won’t include all these elements and some might include all of them. Another thing that you might have noticed is that, nowhere in the acronym, is there any mention of verbs. We’ll show you where the verbs fit by using an example Afrikaans sentence in which all these elements can be found. Here it is: |
| Dewan: Die boer het elke dag met die trekker stadig oor die plaas gery om sy werk te doen. |
| Antoni: It means: "The farmer drove slowly over the farm every day, with the tractor, to do his work." That’s a rather long sentence, but, once we break it down, you will see how easy it is to form, using the acronym as our guide. It starts with the subject, which is the "S" of the acronym, and the subject, in this case, is "the farmer" or |
| Dewan: die boer— |
| Antoni: then comes the first verb: |
| Dewan: het. |
| Antoni: We already know that the first verb is always the second element of the sentence. Next, we have the second letter of the acronym, which is "T," which stands for "Time." The time phrase in this sentence is |
| Dewan: elke dag, |
| Antoni: meaning "every day." Let’s quickly look at the section of the sentence we have built thus far: |
| Dewan: Die boer het elke dag... |
| Antoni: The literal translation of this is: "The farmer did every day…" and, as you can hear, we have covered the subject, the first verb, and the time. Let’s now add the object and the manner. The object phrase is "with the tractor," or |
| Dewan: met die trekker, |
| Antoni: and the manner is "slowly" or |
| Dewan: stadig. |
| Antoni: Now that we have these two elements included, our sentence sounds like this: |
| Dewan: Die boer het elke dag met die trekker stadig... |
| Antoni: The direct translation of this is: "The farmer did every day with the tractor slowly…". |
| The next two elements we must add are the place and the second verb. The place phrase tells us where the events of the sentence occur. In this case, it is "over the farm" or |
| Dewan: oor die plaas. |
| Antoni: The second verb only ever occurs in the past tense or in the future tense, and it is always the main verb of the sentence. In this sentence, the second verb is "drove" or |
| Dewan: gery. |
| Antoni: The last element that we must add is the infinitive and the infinitive of this sentence is: |
| Dewan: om sy werk te doen, |
| Antoni: which means "to do his work". In Afrikaans, the infinitive is invariably a phrase, and it tells us why the action of the sentence was undertaken. With that, we have covered the whole sentence, so let’s listen to it one more time: |
| Dewan: Die boer het elke dag met die trekker stadig oor die plaas gery om sy werk te doen |
| Antoni: and its meaning is: "The farmer drove his tractor slowly over the farm every day to do his work." This is the full sentence, incorporating all the elements of the STOMPI acronym, plus the two verbs of which the first always follows the subject, and the second precedes the infinitive. |
| Cultural Insight/Expansion |
| Antoni: Earlier we mentioned the acronym, STOMPI, and gave you an example of how it can be applied. Of course, the structure we used is not the only one that is possible. All the elements of the structure might still be present, but sometimes they can be rearranged somewhat. In other words, it is possible to start not with the subject, but with other aspects of the structure. Let’s take the same sentence we used previously and start with the time element, as an example: |
| Dewan: Elke dag het die boer met die trekker stadig oor die plaas gery om sy werk te doen. |
| Antoni: This means: "Every day, the farmer drove with the tractor slowly over the farm to do his work." Here, the time and the subject were swapped around. The first verb still occupies the second place in the sentence. Now, let’s try starting with the object: |
| Dewan: Die trekker word elke dag deur die boer stadig oor die plaas gery. |
| Antoni: "The tractor is driven slowly by the farmer over the farm every day." Here, the first verb was different, but it still occupied the same place in the sentence. The infinitive was also left out to avoid confusion. |
| And, finally, let’s begin the sentence with the manner: |
| Dewan: Stadig het die boer elke dag met die trekker oor die plaas gery om sy werk te doen. |
| Antoni: In this sentence, the subject is placed third, and the first verb is, as always, still in the second position. In English, this would be: "Slowly, the farmer drove over the farm every day to do his work." |
| As you can see, Afrikaans sentence structure is somewhat complex, but there is some flexibility, and, with a bit of work, it's not impossible to master. |
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) |
Comments
Hide