wat bedoel jy?
The English phrase "what do you mean?" is translated into Afrikaans as wat bedoel jy?
This phrase is used to ask someone to explain their statement more clearly.
What does it mean word for word?
The phrase is composed of wat (what), bedoel (mean) and jy (you).
Which one should you use?
While wat bedoel jy? asks for the underlying meaning or intent, wat sê jy? literally means "what are you saying?" and is used if you simply did not hear the words.
How does it change in a sentence?
To ask this question politely or to a person of authority, replace jy with the formal pronoun u to get wat bedoel u? To change the subject, replace jy with hy for "what does he mean?" (wat bedoel hy?) or with sy for "what does she mean?" (wat bedoel sy?).
Did you know?
- If you use wat bedoel jy? in a heated argument, it often functions as a rhetorical device to express disbelief rather than a genuine request for information.
- The pronoun jy is a direct descendant of the Dutch jij, but unlike modern Dutch, Afrikaans has largely stripped away the complex conjugation patterns for this pronoun.
- The word wat originates from the Proto-Indo-European root *kʷód, making it a distant cousin of the English word 'what'.
Examples in context
- Ek het nie geweet dat die party later sou wees nie. Wat bedoel jy?I didn't know the party would be later. What do you mean?
- Ek verstaan nie, wat bedoel jy?I don't understand, what do you mean?
Sources
- Word origins: Wiktionary entries jy, wat, CC BY-SA 4.0.
