Breakdown of Wij hebben de nauwkeurigheid van het werk gecontroleerd.
wij
we
hebben
to have
het werk
the work
controleren
to check
van
from (possession, starting point) / made of
de nauwkeurigheid
the accuracy
Questions & Answers about Wij hebben de nauwkeurigheid van het werk gecontroleerd.
How is the word nauwkeurigheid formed, and what article does it take?
It is formed by taking the adjective nauwkeurig (accurate) and adding the suffix -heid, which turns it into a noun expressing a quality (accuracy). This works exactly like adding "-ness" or "-acy" in English. A very helpful rule to remember is that all nouns ending in the suffix -heid are common gender nouns, meaning they always take the article de.
Is gecontroleerd a false friend here? It looks like "controlled" rather than "checked".
Yes, it is a classic false friend! While the verb controleren can sometimes mean "to control", its most common meaning in Dutch is "to check", "to verify", or "to inspect". If you want to say "to control" in the sense of operating a machine or managing a situation, you would typically use verbs like besturen, bedienen, or the phrase onder controle houden.
Could I combine the nouns into a compound like de werknauwkeurigheid instead of using van het?
You technically could, because Dutch allows you to endlessly glue nouns together. However, de nauwkeurigheid van het werk sounds much more natural and elegant here. When dealing with abstract qualities ending in -heid, stacking another noun on the front often makes the word feel clunky or overly bureaucratic. Using van (of) is usually the smoother choice.
Why is gecontroleerd placed at the very end of the sentence?
This showcases the standard Dutch sentence structure for perfect tenses, often called the "verb brace" or "bracket". The conjugated auxiliary verb (hebben) takes the second position in the sentence, while the past participle (gecontroleerd) gets pushed all the way to the end. Everything else—in this case, the long direct object de nauwkeurigheid van het werk—is sandwiched between them.
Learn Wij hebben de nauwkeurigheid van het werk gecontroleerd 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