The 7 most common language mistakes

You're probably doing this wrong

I studied Dutch for a year before moving on to Film and Television Studies, so you would say that my knowledge of Dutch is reasonably good. For example, I know that ‘achtuurjournaal’ should be written as one word and, very annoyingly, I know that a correction always pops up when I hear someone say ‘hun zeiden’ or ‘groter als’. But I am always glad that we have editor Maartje who knows whether it should be ‘te veel’ this time or if I should use 'teveel'. In short, nobody is perfect and I certainly am not. Here are the most common mistakes listed so we might learn something from them.

1. Zo en zo instead of sowieso
So it is ‘sowieso’, but this word has many forms of which the most written variant is 'zo en zo'.

2. Gehad instead of gekregen
If you have had something, it is no longer with you, so you have received it. For example, I always find the sentence ‘he has received a brain hemorrhage’ a bit awkward. As if it concerns a gift. Then I prefer: he has suffered a brain hemorrhage.

3. Ik besef me
No, it is ‘ik realiseer me’ or ‘ik besef’. Don't mix those two up. But well, I also say ‘overnieuw’ and ‘uitprinten’. Ultimately, language is descriptive, so if we keep saying things wrong long enough, it will eventually become the new norm.

4. Teveel and te veel therefore
I looked it up for myself again. Te veel means that something was a bit too much. You exercised too much yesterday. Teveel written as one word means ‘a surplus’ and is comparable to ‘an excess’. For example: there is a surplus of leaves in the backyard. In the case of ‘teveel’, ideally, you put the article ‘een’ in front of it.

5. Groter als instead of dan
When two things are equal, you use ‘als’. Joep is as old as Merel. If it is in the comparative, then you use ‘dan’. Joep is richer than Merel.

6. Hun zeiden instead of zij zeiden
‘Hun’ is not a noun, ‘hun’ is a possessive pronoun (their bike). Then you have ‘hen’ which is a personal pronoun. I give it to them.

7. Vertellen tegen
You tell something to someone and say it against.

Then to conclude, a fun anecdote from my own experience. My nephew Karel once told me that he made a wheel from K’NEX. It was so high, ‘even bigger than me, aunt May-Britt.’ The teacher in me had to correct him. ‘Than I, Karel, than I.’ He looked at me from his booster seat in the passenger seat and said: ‘No, it's not that big as you, you know.’

Image: Lidian van Megen