Afrikaans words and grammar points that are easily confused or misused, explained for upper-level learners. Front: the Afrikaans word or phrase. Back: explanation of the common mistake and correct usage.
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- se (possessive marker)
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Afrikaans forms possessives by adding se after the owner, for example Piet se hond (Piet's dog); English learners often try to use an apostrophe-s instead, which Afrikaans does not use.- het / was
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Het is used with a present-tense auxiliary for the perfect tense, for example ek het gesien (I have seen or saw), while was is the simple past of to be; learners often mix these up.- geen ... nie / nie ... nie
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Afrikaans uses double negation, for example Ek het geen geld nie (I have no money); forgetting the second nie is one of the most common learner mistakes.- nie (first) / nie (second)
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The first nie negates the verb, and a second nie is required at the end of the clause to complete the negation; both are needed, unlike English which uses only one negative word.- baie / veel
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Baie means very or a lot and is used far more often in everyday Afrikaans, while veel (much) is rarer and more formal; learners overuse veel from Dutch influence.- jy / jou
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Jy is you (subject), jou is you or your (object and possessive); mixing these is a very common beginner error, for example jou naam (your name) not jy naam.- is / het
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Is means am, is, or are, a state of being, het means have or has; learners sometimes confuse them because of similarity to have verbs in other Germanic languages.- kan / kon
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Kan is present can, kon is past could; Afrikaans verbs generally don't change form for tense except a small set of modal verbs like this one.- min / klein
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Min means little or few, a quantity, while klein means small, a size; confusing them can describe the wrong quality of a noun.- hulle / hul
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Both can mean they or their in casual speech, but hulle is the standard form for they while hul is more often used as a possessive shortcut; overusing hul for the subject sounds overly informal.- wat / wie
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Wat means what or which, wie means who; confusing these two question and relative words is a common beginner mistake, since they look similar to English what and who.- dat / wat
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Dat is the conjunction that, introducing a clause such as Ek weet dat, I know that, while wat is a relative pronoun meaning that, which, or who; confusing them changes the sentence's grammar.- ken / weet
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Ken means to know, be familiar with a person or place, weet means to know a fact; English know covers both, so learners often use the wrong one.- -de / -te (past participle endings)
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Regular verbs form the past participle with ge- plus -de or -te depending on the final consonant of the stem; learners often guess the wrong ending.- ge- (past participle prefix)
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Most Afrikaans past participles start with ge-, for example gesien, seen; forgetting this prefix is a common mistake carried over from English verb forms.
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