10 Common Dutch language and spelling mistakes Dutch Expat Children make (and how to help)

“The hardest thing is still de and het.”

That is what Sarah told me recently.

Sarah was eight years old when she started taking Dutch lessons with me. At the time, she was living with her family in Nigeria. Her father is Dutch, her mother is Nigerian, and she joined her Dutch lessons online from there.

She was actually one of my very first students.

For two years, we had our lessons together while she was living in Nigeria. Then her family moved to the Netherlands, to The Hague, and Sarah continued her education at a Dutch primary school.

She is 21 now.

She went on to attend a bilingual grammar school, graduated cum laude and is now studying at TU Delft. Her Dutch is so fluent that most people have absolutely no idea that she spent the first years of her life growing up outside the Netherlands.

And every now and then, we still meet up.

The last time I saw her, I asked:

“Are there still things in Dutch that you find difficult? Or moments when people notice that you didn’t grow up speaking Dutch in the Netherlands from the beginning?”

She laughed.

“De and het.”

Still.

She told me that sometimes she will be right in the middle of telling a story when suddenly she starts doubting herself.

De bad? Het bad?

And then she makes a choice.

“De bad.”

And someone says:

“Het bad.”

“And then I’m like: yessss, I knew I was doubting it for a reason!”

Sometimes that one tiny mistake starts a whole conversation. People ask her where she grew up, when she moved to the Netherlands and how her Dutch became so good.

Because otherwise, most people would never know.

And I think that is such a lovely example of how language works.

You can speak a language incredibly well and still have those tiny things that make your brain stop for a second and think:

Wait… which one was it again?

Why do multilingual children make different mistakes in Dutch?

Children growing up outside the Netherlands often learn Dutch differently from children who are surrounded by Dutch all day, every day.

Maybe they speak Dutch with Mum, but English with Dad.

Maybe they attend an international school.

Maybe they can chat away happily with their grandparents in the Netherlands but have never had a single formal Dutch spelling lesson.

Or perhaps they only started actively learning Dutch when they were eight, ten or twelve.

That doesn’t mean their Dutch is “bad”.

Quite the opposite.

Many of our students speak two, three or sometimes even four languages.

But there are certain parts of Dutch that they simply hear, read or practise less often.

And that is why we often see the same little difficulties coming back.

These are 10 common Dutch language and spelling mistakes we regularly see at Dutch for Kids – plus some simple ways you can help your child at home.

1. De or het?

Of course we have to start with this one.

De tafel. Het huis. De stoel. Het meisje. Het water.

Why?

Well…

Sometimes there is a rule.

But quite often, you simply have to know.

Children growing up in the Netherlands hear Dutch all day long. By the time they are older, they have heard many nouns together with their articles hundreds or even thousands of times.

For a child who hears much less Dutch, that process is different.

So you might hear:

de huis
het tafel
de meisje
de bad

How can you help your child?

Always teach a Dutch noun together with its article.

So don’t learn:

tafel = table

Learn:

de tafel = the table

And instead of:

huis = house

learn:

het huis = house

We like to include articles in our vocabulary lists for exactly this reason.

Your child isn’t really learning one word anymore.

They are learning a little package:

het huis

Over time, that makes a huge difference.

2. Dutch word order

“Vandaag ik ga naar school.”

You know exactly what your child means.

But in Dutch, we say:

Vandaag ga ik naar school.

Dutch word order can be surprisingly complicated, especially for children who use English or another language at school every day.

Just look at this:

Ik ga vandaag naar school.
Vandaag ga ik naar school.
Omdat ik vandaag naar school ga…

The verb suddenly seems to be moving around everywhere.

How can you help your child?

You don’t need to turn every incorrect sentence into a grammar lesson.

Often, simply repeat the sentence correctly.

Your child says:

“Gisteren ik heb gevoetbald.”

You answer:

“O, heb je gisteren gevoetbald?”

Your child hears the correct sentence structure without feeling as though they are being corrected every time they speak.

With older children, you can of course start looking at sentence structure more consciously.

One simple thing to practise is what happens when a sentence begins with a time or place:

Vandaag ga ik…
Na school speel ik…
In Nederland wonen wij…

3. Geen or niet?

“Ik heb niet huiswerk.”

Almost.

In Dutch, we say:

Ik heb geen huiswerk.

The difference between geen and niet can be difficult when Dutch isn’t the language a child uses most.

How can you help your child?

Start with a simple rule of thumb.

Can you put een in front of the noun?

Then you will often use geen when making it negative.

Ik heb een fiets → Ik heb geen fiets.
Ik heb een hond → Ik heb geen hond.
Ik heb huiswerk → Ik heb geen huiswerk.

With verbs and adjectives, you will often use niet:

Ik zwem niet.
Ik ben niet moe.
Dat is niet leuk.

There are more rules, of course.

But children don’t need every exception at once. Sometimes one useful little rule is exactly what they need to get started.

4. Irregular verbs

“Ik loopte naar huis.”

I actually love mistakes like this.

Because your child has clearly discovered a Dutch grammar rule.

Werken → werkte.
Fietsen → fietste.

So surely:

Lopen → loopte.

Perfectly logical.

Except Dutch has decided it needs to be:

liep.

Sorry. 😉

How can you help your child?

Practise frequently used irregular verbs in real sentences.

gaan – ging – gegaan
zien – zag – gezien
komen – kwam – gekomen
lopen – liep – gelopen
eten – at – gegeten
drinken – dronk – gedronken

Instead of only memorising lists, use them:

Gisteren ging ik…
Vorige week zag ik…
Toen kwam mijn oma…

The more often your child hears and uses the correct form, the more natural it starts to sound.

5. D, t or dt?

Welcome to something that plenty of Dutch adults still have to think about too.

Hij word? Hij wordt? Is gebeurd? Is gebeurt?

Dutch verb spelling can be particularly difficult for multilingual children because you often cannot hear from the pronunciation whether you need a d, t or dt.

How can you help your child?

Teach your child not to guess.

Instead, use the same steps every time:

1. Find the verb.
2. Find the finite verb (persoonsvorm).
3. Find the subject.
4. Decide which tense the sentence is in.
5. Then apply the spelling rule.

For example:

Hij wordt morgen tien.

Who wordt? → hij.
Present tense.
Stem word + t → wordt.

A fixed routine gives children much more confidence than thinking:

Hmm… I think this one has dt?

6. Single and double vowels

maan – man
boot – bot
raam – ramen
boom – bomen

This is a very Dutch spelling rule that children don’t automatically learn just because they can speak Dutch.

A child can be perfectly capable of having a conversation in Dutch and still write:

boomen
raamen

How can you help your child?

Practise words in word families:

maan → manen
raam → ramen
boom → bomen
been → benen

Say the words out loud together and look at what happens when another syllable is added.

Instead of memorising every word separately, your child starts to recognise the spelling pattern.

7. Dutch prepositions: op, in, aan or naar?

“Ik wacht voor jou.”

In English, you wait for someone.

In Dutch, however, you wacht op iemand.

And that is where things can get confusing.

You are boos op someone.
You denkt aan someone.
You wacht op someone.
You go naar school.
You are op school.

Why?

Because languages don’t translate word for word.

How can you help your child?

Teach the whole combination instead of the individual word.

Don’t only learn:

wachten = to wait

Learn:

wachten op = to wait for

Don’t only learn:

denken = to think

Learn:

denken aan = to think about

Again, turn it into a little language package.

That makes it much less likely that your child will translate the structure of an English sentence directly into Dutch.

8. Die, dat, deze or dit?

“De meisje die daar loopt.”

There are actually two common Dutch difficulties hiding in this sentence.

It is:

het meisje

And then:

het meisje dat daar loopt.

But:

de jongen die daar loopt.

How can you help your child?

Connect this rule to de and het:

de → deze → die
het → dit → dat

For example:

de tafel → deze tafel → die tafel
het huis → dit huis → dat huis
de jongen → die jongen
het meisje → dat meisje

And suddenly you can see why learning de tafel instead of just tafel is so useful.

These little pieces of Dutch grammar all start connecting to each other.

9. Writing words the way they sound

A child can know a Dutch word perfectly well and still have absolutely no idea how to spell it.

We see this quite often in children who speak Dutch at home but attend school in another language.

Their spoken Dutch can be fantastic, while their written Dutch is several steps behind.

So they start writing words more or less the way they hear them.

And actually, that makes complete sense.

How can you help your child?

Let your child read lots of Dutch.

Books, comics, magazines, recipes, websites about something they love – it doesn’t really matter.

The more often children see Dutch words written correctly, the more they build up a visual memory of what those words are supposed to look like.

Combine reading with small, natural writing activities.

Write a message to Grandma.

Make a shopping list.

Write a postcard.

Write a little story.

It doesn’t always have to be a worksheet.

10. Building a Dutch sentence using the rules of another language

This is one of the most interesting ones.

Sometimes a child knows every single Dutch word they need.

But then they put those words together using English, Spanish, French or another language’s sentence structure.

Every individual word is Dutch.

But the sentence somehow makes you think:

Hmm… that’s not quite how we would say it.

That isn’t a strange mistake at all.

A multilingual child’s brain has several language systems available. Sometimes a structure from one language simply slips into another.

How can you help your child?

Don’t correct every little mistake while your child is enthusiastically telling you a story.

That is a very quick way to take all the fun out of speaking Dutch.

Instead, choose one or two things to focus on.

And when you hear an unusual sentence, simply give the natural Dutch version back:

“Ah, je bedoelt: ik heb er heel veel zin in.”

Your child hears the correct Dutch without feeling that everything they say is wrong.

Should you correct every Dutch mistake your child makes?

No.

Please don’t.

Imagine trying to tell someone a story and being interrupted every two sentences:

“That was wrong.”

“That too.”

“And actually, that word needs to go over there.”

After five minutes, you probably wouldn’t feel like talking anymore either.

Children need to use Dutch above all.

Talk.

Read.

Write.

Tell jokes.

Tell stories.

And make mistakes.

Feedback is absolutely important, but you don’t have to correct everything at once.

Choose something to focus on.

Maybe this week you pay extra attention to de and het.

Or Dutch word order.

Or the past tense.

And sometimes?

Just let the rest go.

What do mistakes tell us about your child’s Dutch development?

As a teacher, this might be one of the things I find most interesting about mistakes.

When a child says loopte instead of liep, I don’t only see a mistake.

I see a child who has discovered that Dutch verbs often use -de or -te in the past tense and is trying to apply that rule.

When a child says de huis, I know we can spend some more time on Dutch articles.

And when a child says “morgen ik ga naar school”, I know the vocabulary is already there and we can start building further on Dutch sentence structure.

A mistake isn’t simply something that needs to disappear.

It tells us what the next step might be.

Practising Dutch language and spelling with Dutch for Kids

At Dutch for Kids, we don’t only look at which mistakes a child makes during our one-to-one Dutch lessons.

We also look at why they are making them.

Perhaps your child speaks Dutch fluently, but their spelling is behind.

Maybe they have a great vocabulary, but Dutch sentence structure is still difficult.

Or perhaps your child is starting right at the beginning and learning Dutch as a second language.

Every child starts somewhere different.

That is why we first look at your child’s current level and build from there, working on speaking, reading, spelling, grammar, vocabulary and reading comprehension.

Your child doesn’t have to fit into a standard programme.

The Dutch lessons fit your child.

And Sarah…

Maybe Sarah will still occasionally hesitate between de and het ten years from now.

And you know what?

That is absolutely fine.

Because that eight-year-old girl who once logged into her Dutch lessons from Nigeria went on to complete her entire school career in the Netherlands, attend a bilingual grammar school, graduate cum laude and study at TU Delft.

She speaks Dutch as if she has never known anything else.

And every once in a while she says:

“De bad.”

Someone replies:

“Het bad.”

And Sarah thinks:

Oh yes. I knew I was doubting it for a reason.

She speaks three languages fluently. Not everyone can say the same thing.

A language doesn’t have to be perfect to truly be yours.