Personal Pronouns Learn

Personal (subject) pronouns are words such as 'I', 'you' and''we' and are the subject of a verb.

They are as follows:-

Iek
youjy
you (formal)u
hehy
shesy
weons
you (plural)julle, u
you (plural formal)u
theyhulle

And here are some example sentences:

I am sorryEk is jammer
I can't speak AfrikaansEk kan nie Afrikaans praat nie
Do you speak Afrikaans?Praat jy Afrikaans?
She has a dogSy het 'n hond
We have a dogOns het 'n hond

In Afrikaans as in English some of the pronouns have more than one meaning.

For example, ons can mean 'we' or 'us' depending on how it is being used.

Afrikaans has both singular and plural forms of 'you' as well as formal and informal.

Jy is used in the singular (i.e. when addressing one person only) and is informal.

Julle is used when speaking to more than one person (informally) and u is the formal version of you and is used both in the singular and plural.


The best way to become used to Afrikaans pronouns is through repeated exposure to the language with an awareness of the grammatical function. This can be through listening, reading, listening to music, watching television, learning sentences and so on.

The wiki entry has a thorough (and complicated) explanation of grammatical terms.