This article describes the grammar of Afrikaans, a language spoken in South Africa and Namibia which originated from 17th century Dutch. Verbs There is no distinction for example between the infinitive and present forms of verbs, with the exception of these two verbs: This phenomenon is somewhat akin to English verbs, since infinitives are mostly equivalent to verbs in the simple tense, except in English singular 3rd person forms, in which case an extra -s is added. In addition, Afrikaans verbs do not conjugate differently depending on the subject. For example, For most verbs, the preterite (e.g. I watched) has been completely replaced by the perfect (e.g. I have watched), or in storytelling by the present tense (i.e. the use of a historical present, which is sometimes also employed in Dutch). The only common exceptions to this are the modal verbs (see the following table) and the verb wees "be" (preterite form was). The following four full verbs also have (rarely used) preterite forms: Several verbs have irregular perfect forms which are used alongside regular forms, sometimes with different meanings: The verb baar (to bear, to give birth) has two past participles: gebaar and gebore. The former is used in the active voice ("she has borne") and the latter in the passive voice ("she was born"). This is akin to Dutch, in which the verb baren has the past participles gebaard and geboren, with a similar distinction. Compare also the distinction between English born and borne. Modern Afrikaans also lacks a pluperfect (e.g. I had watched). Instead, the pluperfect, like the preterite, is expressed using the perfect. The perfect is constructed with the auxiliary verb het + past participle, which—except for the verb hê (past participle gehad), separable verbs such as reghelp (past participle reggehelp) and verbs with beginnings such as ver- and ont- (verkoop, ontmoet are both infinitive and past participle)—is formed regularly by adding the prefix ge- to the verb's infinitive/present form. For example, Ek breek – I break Ek het dit gebreek – I broke it, I have broken it, I had broken it An object is necessary in this case, otherwise it implies that the subject (ek) is broken. The future tense is in turn indicated using the auxiliary sal + infinitive. For example, Ek sal kom – I will come (or literally I shall come) The conditional is indicated by the preterite form sou +