In English there are two articles ' a ' and ' the '. The definite article is ' the ' and the indefinite article is ' a ' and the same articles are used for all nouns, none of which have gender.
The indefinite article in Afrikaans is 'n which means a or an.
This is never capitalised and when it occurs at the beginning of a sentence the first letter of the next word is turned into a capital instead.
E.g. 'n Tafel vir vier
The definite article in Afrikaans ' die ' and is used where in English we use ' the ' .
| the man | die man |
| the woman | die vrou |
| the dog | die hond |
Some words have a feminine form e.g. sanger 'singer' is sanger when referring to a male singer and sangeres when referring to a female singer, but in both cases the article remains die.
However there is no concept of noun gender as in French or Spanish (or more closely German).
Die 'the' doesn't change in the plural or if it is referring to a masculine or feminine word. So 'the dogs' is die honde, die manne 'the men' and so on.
Dié with the acute accent é has the meaning of 'this'.