Questions & Answers about Hij bekende de fout.
Doesn't "bekende" usually mean "famous" or "an acquaintance"?
It can! As an adjective or noun, een bekende means an acquaintance or a well-known person. However, based on its position directly after the subject hij, it is functioning here as the simple past tense of the verb bekennen (to confess).
If I need to use this verb in a perfect tense for reported speech, what is its past participle?
The past participle is bekend. Because the infinitive bekennen starts with the unstressed, inseparable prefix be-, it does not get the standard ge- prefix in the perfect tenses.
How would you shift this exact sentence into the past perfect tense, as we are doing in this lesson?
To say "He had confessed the mistake", you use the simple past of hebben (had) as the auxiliary verb, and move the past participle to the end: Hij had de fout bekend.
What is the difference between "de fout" and "de vergissing"?
They are often used interchangeably to mean "the mistake". However, de fout is typically a factual error or doing something incorrectly (like a spelling mistake), while de vergissing implies a misunderstanding or an oversight (like accidentally grabbing someone else's coat because it looks like yours).
Learn Hij bekende de fout and more in Dutch
All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.
- ✓ Practice with interactive exercises
- ✓ Track your progress with spaced repetition
- ✓Learn at your own pace — completely free