Afrikaans grammar question

[lilbluefoxie]

My name is Jon, I am learning to speak Afrikaans, as I have family from ZA who can speak it, plus I have a few friends from the Nederlands. I would say i'm doing pretty good, my method of learning has been to learn the phrases and words I use most often in conversation.

However, one thing that is confusing me is the word order, sometimes it follows english well, as in "ek heb een nieuw hond" (I have a new dog), but sometimes when asking a question, the word order is different, such in "het jy dit gehoord?" (have you heard it? is said as: have you it hear?) and im wondering if theres a clear way to tell when a sentince is written in the same word order as english or if the word order is different. Obviously an online translator wont know the difference, so im wondering if theres an easy way to understand the word order.

Dankie

[andre]

Hi Jon! Glad you're learning Afrikaans!

I assume that your question is about Afrikaans, allthough the examples you've given, are Dutch.
The normal word order in Afrikaans is Subject-Verb-Object in the main clause, and Subject-Object-Verb in the subordinate clause if it follows the main clause. If the subordinate clause precedes the main clause, the word order for the main clause is Verb-Subject-Object.


Hope that helps!

[lilbluefoxie]

Do you have any examples of what you meant