My daughter was making a book. I heard her spelling B-A-L (ball) and saw her writing it down in her book. She decided she would like her book to be really funny, so she started writing a new word. She asked me to come read the word and I could hear the excitement in her voice…
Actually, SGETJ, isn’t a Dutch word. My daughter meant to write SCHEETJE, which means ‘fart’. Obviously, I knew that’s what she wanted me to say!
Actually, I thought it was kind of cute. She’s discovering the power of words! She was so proud of her ‘naughty’ word and we laughed together about me saying it out loud!
Sometimes I wonder whether I should teach her everything at this early age (she’s 4,5 years old), but she enjoys writing so much! I don’t want to put pressure on her, but at the same time, I wouldn’t want her to learn things the wrong way by not correcting her. That’s why I decided to explain to her how she should write this word.
To many foreigners, harsh G sounds are typical to the Dutch language. We actually have two ways of writing it: by using the letter G or by using CH together. Read more here about how to pronounce them.
Practicing the use of ‘CH’
It’s not easy to know when to use ‘G’ of ‘CH’ in Dutch. That’s why I decided to focus on the use in combination with the letter ‘S’ at the beginning of a word, which is pretty typical for Dutch. I explained to her that ‘S’ doesn’t go with ‘G’, but with ‘CH’.
We decided to practice a bit, so we wrote: ‘Scheetje’ (fart), ‘School’ (School), ‘Schip’ (Ship), ‘Schat’ (treasure, honey) and ‘Schelp’ (Shell):
Wow. After three words, she got it right!
I’m so proud of my little SCHAT.
Speaking more languages 