Language errors that I often encounter

As a proofreader, I encounter many different errors in texts. For example, sentences that do not read well because the syntax is incorrect, typos, spaces in compounds and verbs that are written incorrectly. In this blog you will see the most common errors that I regularly encounter.

Make a decision or make a decision

I often come across the combination ‘making decisions’. The correct combination is ‘making decisions’. Making decisions is an anglicism, which means that it is too literal a translation from English. Think of the English ‘to make a decision’. It is also often confused with making choices. Making is part of choices, but not of decisions.

Wrong:

• I make a decision
• Make the decision as soon as possible!

Correct:

• I make a decision
• Make the decision as soon as possible!

Instead of making a decision, you can also use the verb decide. This rule also applies to making a decision or deciding. There it is not making a decision either. Then you get:

• I decide
• Decide as soon as possible!
• I decide.
• Decide as soon as possible!

Looking for or searching

In Facebook groups, there are often calls for ‘I am looking for someone who…’ or ‘I am looking for this book/a training/etc.’ But which of these two sentences is correct?

Opzoek and op zoek both exist. You can search for something, look up something and be looking for something. In the last combination zoek is not a verb, but a noun. In this situation you can compare it to speurtocht. Just think of:

• I’m on a quest to find the best way to get into the city
• I’m looking for the best way to get into the city.

Other combinations with op where you also write op separately from the following word:

• I’m on my way
• I’m on my way to town.
• I’m going on a trip to Italy.

Look up is a verb. Think of looking something up in Google and looking something up in an encyclopedia. The form look up is correct in the following sentences:

• Would you like me to look up that book for you?
• Can you look up that book for me?
• He traveled to France, where he visited an acquaintance.
• I want you to find that movie now.
• I looked that up for you.

In many sentences you see op and zoek again separately as a verb form, just take a look:

• I’m looking that up
• you look that up
• he looks that up
• We’ll look that up

A mnemonic for when you have to put the space how to build telemarketing data between op and zoek: Listen to where you put the stress. In op zoek the stress is on the word zoek. In opzoek the stress is on the word op.

In response to or as a result of

In conversations you can hardly hear the difference between ‘na’ and ‘naar’, but there is a difference. In the combination with ‘aanleiding van’ you use ‘naar’. Naar volgende van is a fixed combination and you learn or can look up fixed combinations.

After usually means that something happens after something else or the next thing you’re going to do, as in:

• After dinner I clear the table.
• After playing, the children put away their toys.
• After learning I can give myself a reward.
• I’m going to take a shower after dinner.

To usually refers to going somewhere, as in:

• I’m going to the hairdresser.
• I’m going to the supermarket tomorrow.
• I’m going on holiday to France.

Na and naar can also both occur in one sentence:

• I’m going to the neighbors tomorrow after dinner.
• I’ll come to you after school.
• After the holiday in France I’m going to Spain.

He wants or he wants

Is it he wants or he wants?

In general, we learn that a verb gets a -t with hij, zij and het. With willen this is different. With willen hij, zij and het do not get a -t.

Some people think that ‘he wants’ is old-fashioned or used to be correct, but recently ‘he wants’ is said more and more often and is almost becoming noho izany dia heveriko fa commonplace. The fact that it is not ‘he wants’ has to do with the history of the verb ‘want’. In short, ‘want’ comes from the subjunctive mood wille/wil. A subjunctive mood is also a wishful mood. You can read more about this history at Onze Taal.

So it is:

• He would like to go on holiday.
• She wants a candy.
• The horse wants to gallop.
• It is also: someone wants and everyone wants.

It often goes wrong when a large part of the sentence is between ‘he’ or ‘everyone’ and ‘want’. It also often goes wrong with questions. For example:

• When he wants to go on holiday to France.
• Would someone please help me out?
• Everyone wants to earn some extra money.

For the sake of clarity, here is a summary:

• I do
• you want/you want, but when asking: do you want.
• he/she/it wants
• we want
• you want
• they want
• you want, but you also want is correct: Would you like a cup of coffee?

That or that after a noun

Sometimes we write sentences like: ‘a website that looks nice, is more appealing’ or ‘a book that contains few errors, is easy to read’. I also regularly 1000 mobile phone numbers see that ‘that’ is used with words like book and ‘that’ with website. These sentences are not correct, because that refers to a het-word and die to a de-word. The mnemonic is that de, die and deze end in -e and het, dit and dat end in -t.

Because we use ‘een’ instead of de or het, we don’t always see which word we should use. Do you want to be sure which word belongs and can’t remember whether it’s a de or het word? Then Google the noun, for example with the search term ‘de boek of het boek’ or ‘de website of het website’. Then you will also know whether you can refer with die or dat.

Good sentences are:

• A website that looks nice.
• A book that is easy to read.
• Do you have a company that sells a lot via the internet?
• I’m reading a book about a website that isn’t properly maintained.
• Do you have a text that needs to be corrected?

Do you want to make sure that these errors are not in your text?