Word
Probeer de berekening niet te vergeten.
Meaning
Try not to forget the calculation.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Probeer de berekening niet te vergeten.
niet
not
vergeten
to forget
proberen
to try
te
to (infinitive marker)
Questions & Answers about Probeer de berekening niet te vergeten.
This lesson is about zich ver- verbs for making mistakes. Is vergeten one of those?
Not exactly. While vergeten (to forget) starts with ver- and implies an error, it is a normal non-reflexive verb here. There is a reflexive form, zich vergeten, but it means 'to lose your temper' or 'to forget your manners'. In this sentence, you are just forgetting an object (the calculation), so no reflexive pronoun is used.
Why do we use te vergeten here instead of just the infinitive vergeten?
The verb proberen (to try) requires the word te before the infinitive of the linked verb. When giving a command like 'try not to do something', the structure is probeer + [object] + niet te + [infinitive].
Why is niet placed after de berekening?
In Dutch, niet generally comes after a specific direct object. Because de berekening is a specific, known item (indicated by the definite article de), niet is placed after it rather than before it.
How is the word berekening formed?
It is built from the verb rekenen (to do math). Adding the prefix be- creates the transitive verb berekenen (to calculate a specific thing), and the suffix -ing turns that action into a noun (the calculation).