Only one fifth of the Dutch population use the same letter. More than half of the people use loose and fixed letters interchangeably. A quarter of the people chooses to write all letters loose. It is still important to pay more attention to this. American research has shown that writing by hand gives a boost to the memory. In addition, the children who were tested also came up with many creative texts. In the end, the story hung together well, making the end result many times better. It also gives you better control over other actions. This is due to the creativity that is stimulated in the brain at that moment. By repeating it regularly you get better at it. Even if you only do it 10 minutes a day. That is a small effort?

What are the rules for writing together?

There are several rules that you should pay attention to when writing together. It is important to use a space after every word. Combinations should be written as one word. An example of this is dining room table. The word dining room and table are never written separately. Sometimes you may also need to use a separator. An example of this is ski-equipment which is a combination of the words ski and equipment. In addition, in primary school you learn about the exceptions that exist. For example, for café you should use a diaeresis. Countries that consist of several syllables are also written with a hyphen. Some examples are South Africa and North Korea. Another exception is the word twintigduizend, which is a combination of twenty and one thousand. There are also combinations of prepositions such as enjoy where you write there and from together.

What do you have to look out for?

It is a difficult task for most people to write to each other. To make a text understandable for others, it is important that you write the right words together. When this is not the case, people's attention is focused on the errors, and the information is often forgotten. We already mentioned some exceptions, but there are many more. For example, in the sentence you write the word on and one together five times. 

Good spelling is something you can often need in life. For example, when cancelling a subscription or writing a job application. If you apply for a job with a lot of mistakes in the text you will probably be rejected. In addition, the correct spelling can also help you to clearly explain your problem to a customer service representative. Often there are inexperienced people behind this who do not understand when you do not use the correct spelling.

What is the reason for writing to each other?

There are many rules you can learn at school for writing to each other. Of course, there are main rules that must be followed, but there are also many exceptions. For example, it is usually the intention that compounds should be written as compound words. A good example of this is football boot which is a combination of football and shoe. There are also exceptions that prove the rule, such as eating a ready-made meal. Here you see that the words are connected by the hyphen and therefore count as one word in the text. Numbers are also often written as one word, e.g. twenty-eight. Research has shown that only one fifth of the population actually does this. We live in a time where we work a lot with chat language so the basic spelling rules are often forgotten. When finding a job you will quickly notice that if you do not use the correct spelling there will be no response.

How many people can write to each other?

In the Netherlands, only 20% of the Dutch can really write to each other. This is very little and also a growing problem. If you want to file a complaint about a product, it is important that you do this by using the correct spelling. You also apply this when applying for a job. More and more writing is done on the computer and it is important that you do this in the right way. Most computers have a spell checker, but this does not always work seamlessly. When you have contact with customers as a company you want to do this in a professional way. You also see that the consumer confidence disappears when an email is full of spelling errors. In the long run this can result in bankruptcy.

Using the correct spellings

By writing to each other when necessary you can achieve a lot. So you notice that you often get compliments for the way you have phrased your application. You are then, as it were, 1-0 in front. This is also important when you represent a company. You see many scammers active on the Internet who speak poor Dutch. The last thing you want is for people to think the same about your company. Capital letters in the right place are also very important. This is mainly used for names and countries, but there are also several exceptions. 

Most people work on a computer from now on. It is then wise to work in the free program Google Docs. It has the best spelling checker that immediately recognises mistakes. This is because people often make suggestions that the program learns from. The big advantage is that you will always write in the right way. This program also recognizes form errors.

Writing together with and without capitals

It is also important to use capital letters in the right places when writing in sequence. It is important to start a sentence with a capital letter. Sacred objects and personal names are also capitalised. Names of royalty, such as Her Majesty, are also capitalised. Geographical names such as cities, towns, countries and continents are also capitalised. This also applies to local dialects and languages in general. The names of national holidays are always capitalised. The names of some organizations, such as the European Union and Dutch Railways, should also be capitalized.

Children learn to write to each other

Children are taught early on how to write to each other. In the beginning this is mainly done through play with a clear explanation from the teacher. They also get the information they need to know whether something should be written with a capital letter or not. Besides that they also learn when to use d,t or dt. They also learn this for many other plural forms. They also learn the meaning of pronouns and adjectives. In most cases this is the basic knowledge in primary school and you learn much more in secondary school. By continuing to practice how to write best and what comes across as professional you can remember this. When you have a profession in which you rarely write, this becomes difficult. You will have to learn this in your spare time. Because the less people write, the faster they lose it.

Conclusion of the story

It is important to learn to write to each other. Children who are born here learn this in primary school. People who come here from another country get special lessons in writing. Often it takes them a little longer to master the foreign language and the spelling that goes with it. However, we see more and more that these people know the rules very well. This is probably because they learned it at a later age and had to apply it a lot.