Language/Afrikaans/Grammar/Common-Errors

Common Errors in Grammar in Afrikaans Language

Afrikaans tense is not necessarily expressed. (Kolbe,2012)

• Only three tenses exist in Afrikaans: present, past, and future. Conditional, perfect, and pluperfect tenses are difficult to contextualize and utilize correctly.
• Ex. He would have been going had it not been raining. These use of tenses would be hard for a L2 to use correctly.

There is no verb conjugation depending on the tense.

• As a basic rule the auxiliary verb ‘het’ and ‘ge’ are used before the verb to denote past tense. (Donaldson, 1993)
• ‘sal’ is added before the verb to denote future tense.

Ex. Ek loop. - I am walking. Ek het geloop. - I have walked. Ek sal loop. - I will walk.

There is more emphasis on the action in a sentence. Duplication of the verb to show emphasis or continuity instead of using a specific adverb. (Botha, 1998)

• This can leads to unnecessary duplication in English.

Ex. krap- means ‘scratch oneself’ krap krap krap means ‘scratch oneself vigorously’

Tendency to use double negatives in L2 if directly translating from L1. (Markey,1982)

Ex. "You must not do that" Jy moet dit nie doen nie. A L2 speaker might first say: “You must not not do that.” (C. Kolbe, personal communication, February 22, 2012)

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Finish this lesson and explore these related pages: Negation, Nouns, Conditional Mood & Common Compound Verbs + Conjugations.

Source

• http://www.ritell.org/resources/documents/language%20project/afrikaans.pdf

Other Lessons

• Modal verbs (can, must, want and will)
• Future Tense
• Pronouns
• Sentence Structure
• Formal vs Informal Imperatives
• Common Compound Verbs + Conjugations
• Conditional Mood
• The Rule of “Two Knees”
• Adjectives