Cellar Door wrote:1. Ek wil net by die huis bly = I've noticed that Afrikaans uses articles where english does not - something to be aware of.
To be fair, the more literal translation would be : I will just stay at the house.
In which case 'die' translates easily to 'house'. But of course we might more often say 'home' in English, and we would not put 'the' in front of it.
Cellar Door wrote:2. Is "man" the common word a wife would call a husband?.
In this context, 'man' is likely used more like an exclamation. It could be said by anyone. In English we do this too: "Oh man! I had so much homework to do". I think the usage in English is a *little* different to Afrikaans though, but I am illustrating the point that its not directly referring to any male person nearby!
For Afrikaans though, a woman may commonly refer to her husband as 'my man' (funny - Afrikaans here mirrors the English, just the pronunciation changes!). But this is not the case in 'Ag man' or 'Ag nee man' or similar expressions.
EDIT:
You may see someone begin their sentence with 'ja nee'. Yes no. eg:
Hoe gaan dit deesdae met jou?
Ja nee, goed dankie.
All of these are for casual speech when you know the person well. They are good to become familiar with, but perhaps of limited use until you're using Afrikaans with someone you know well and can speak casually. Some are more casual than others.
As for your last question, I dont even know how it works in English. I immediately thought 'hey I know the answer' and then thought about the English of it... got confused... and then it called my Afrikaans into doubt.
So, and is just me wondering out loud for anyone to correct: In English I could say: I may go to school.
What is the past tense of it? I may have gone to school? I could have gone to school? I might have gone to school?
I mean one wants to express not that a decision was made, but one cannot remember which decision was made. But rather that in the past one had the option of doing something. To say "I may have gone to school" sounds like I'm saying I don't remember which decision was made, when what I mean is that in the past I had the option of going to school (and saying nothing about whether I did or did not do it).