Breakdown of Mijn grootste uitdaging is om de nieuwe woorden niet te vergeten.
zijn
to be
niet
not
nieuw
new
het woord
the word
om
for
mijn
my
vergeten
to forget
de uitdaging
the challenge
grootste
greatest
Elon.io is an online learning platform
We have an entire course teaching Dutch grammar and vocabulary.
Questions & Answers about Mijn grootste uitdaging is om de nieuwe woorden niet te vergeten.
Why is om used before te vergeten instead of a dat-clause?
Dutch often uses an om … te + infinitive construction to introduce a purpose or content clause after verbs like is, blijven, beginnen, etc. In your sentence, om de nieuwe woorden niet te vergeten functions as the complement of is. You could rephrase it with a dat-clause—Mijn grootste uitdaging is dat ik de nieuwe woorden niet vergeet—but om … te is shorter and more idiomatic here.
Can I omit om and say Mijn grootste uitdaging is de nieuwe woorden niet te vergeten?
In standard Dutch, you normally keep om in a copular sentence that introduces an infinitive clause. Dropping om in Mijn grootste uitdaging is … is unusual and can sound awkward. It’s safer, especially in writing, to use om … te.
Why is niet placed between de nieuwe woorden and te vergeten instead of at the end?
In an om … te clause, niet negates the infinitive and therefore sits directly before te + infinitive: niet te vergeten. If you moved niet to the very end (… te vergeten niet), you’d break the infinitive construction and create an ungrammatical word order.
Why does grootste end with -e and not just grootst?
Dutch adjectives take an -e when they stand before a noun (attributive position). Grootste uitdaging uses the superlative in attributive form. The bare grootst appears only predicatively, without a noun following—e.g. Dit huis is het grootst.
Why isn’t there a de before uitdaging, given that we see de nieuwe woorden later?
You already have the possessive mijn, which replaces the article. Mijn grootste uitdaging means my biggest challenge; adding de (de mijn grootste uitdaging) would be redundant and incorrect.
Why are nieuwe woorden preceded by de? Aren’t we talking about words in general?
Using de nieuwe woorden makes them definite: you’re referring to a particular set of words you’ve been studying. If you want to speak totally generally—any new words—you could omit de: Mijn grootste uitdaging is om nieuwe woorden niet te vergeten. That version implies “any new words” rather than “those specific new words.”
Could I use zodat instead of om to express “in order to” here?
You can express purpose with zodat, but it introduces a finite clause and forces subject–verb inversion:
Ik studeer elke dag zodat ik de nieuwe woorden niet vergeet.
In a copular sentence like yours, om … te is more concise. If you switch to zodat, you’d need to rebuild the sentence structure into a main clause plus purpose clause.