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Lesson Transcript

Hallo almal! Ek is Annemarie. Hi everybody! I’m Annemarie. Welcome to AfrikaansPod101.com’s Afrikaans in 3 minuten, the fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Afrikaans.
In the last lesson, you learned how to ask "who" questions in Afrikaans. In this final lesson of the series, we are going to ask questions with hoekom meaning "why?"
Imagine your boss is giving you a call because you are not at work today... He will certainly ask you Hoekom is jy nie by die werk vandag nie? “Why are you not at work today?”
[slowly] Hoekom is jy nie by die werk vandag nie?
Let’s break down this question.
First we have hoekom, which is Afrikaans for "why."
Next comes the verb is, which means “are.” Remember, unlike the English verb, “to be” which changes to “is”, “am,” or ”are” depending on the subject, the Afrikaans is doesn’t change.
After is comes jy which is the word for “you.”
Then comes nie, which is "not,”
followed by die werk meaning “at work.”
And vandag, which is "today."
Finally, negative sentences in Afrikaans have the double nie, as you’ve learned before, so we put another nie at the end of the sentence.
Altogether, it's Hoekom is jy nie by die werk vandag nie?
So in Afrikaans, hoekom is the exact translation of "why," and it’s used to ask the reason for something. It even sounds similar to the English “how come?” which has the same meaning as “why.”
Hoekom
Hoekom is jy laat vandaag?
"Why are you late today?" or “How come you’re late today?”
Let’s look at some other examples for hoekom.
If someone says something you don’t agree with, you can ask them Hoekom dink jy dit? meaning “Why do you think that?”
[slowly] Hoekom dink jy dit?
Or if you’re concerned about the train being late, you can ask someone, Hoekom is die trein laat? meaning “Why is the train late?”
[slowly] Hoekom is die trein laat?
You can even use it for answering, as in - Ek weet nie hoekom nie. meaning “I don’t know why.”
[slowly] Ek weet nie hoekom nie.
Now it’s time for Annemarie’s Tips.
A famous expression among those who speak Afrikaans in South Africa is hoekom nie? which means "Why not?"
You can use it to accept a proposition if you agree or if it was not planned in advance.
For example, if a friend suddenly asks you "Do you want to go to the cinema tonight?"
you can answer hoekom nie? "Why not?"
This lesson is the last of this Absolute Beginner video series. But it’s hopefully not the last you’ll learn about the Afrikaans language! To take your language ability to the next level, check out AfrikaansPod101.com, the fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Afrikaans. Totsiens!

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