Breakdown of Ik wil me tijdens het lezen beter concentreren.
Questions & Answers about Ik wil me tijdens het lezen beter concentreren.
In Dutch, zich concentreren is a reflexive verb. That means it normally takes a reflexive pronoun:
- ik concentreer me – I concentrate
- jij concentreert je – you concentrate
- hij/zij concentreert zich – he/she concentrates
So in your sentence:
- Ik wil me … concentreren = literally “I want to concentrate myself …”
You cannot leave me out in standard Dutch; without it, concentreren sounds incomplete or ungrammatical in this meaning.
No, not in standard Dutch. That sounds wrong to native speakers.
Because zich concentreren is reflexive, you need the reflexive pronoun:
- ✔ Ik wil me tijdens het lezen beter concentreren.
- ✖ Ik wil tijdens het lezen beter concentreren. (unnatural / incorrect)
Dropping the reflexive pronoun might occur in some dialects or informal speech, but you should not copy that as a learner.
In this specific sentence, you use me, not mij or mezelf:
- me – unstressed object / reflexive pronoun (most common in speech and normal writing)
- mij – stressed form (used for emphasis: niet jou, maar mij)
- mezelf – “myself” in a strongly emphatic, contrastive sense
For zich concentreren, the normal, neutral form is:
- Ik wil me tijdens het lezen beter concentreren.
You could say Ik wil mij tijdens het lezen beter concentreren only if you put strong emphasis on mij (e.g. contrasting with someone else), and even then it sounds a bit formal or stiff.
Ik wil mezelf tijdens het lezen beter concentreren is not idiomatic; mezelf doesn’t fit well with zich concentreren in this sense. So:
- ✔ Ik wil me … concentreren. (normal)
- (possible but marked) Ik wil mij … concentreren. (strong emphasis on me)
- ✖ Ik wil mezelf … concentreren. (basically wrong here)
Dutch main clauses usually have:
- The finite verb (here: wil) in the second position;
- Other elements in the middle;
- Any infinitives / participles at the end.
So:
- Ik (subject, 1st position)
- wil (finite verb, 2nd position)
- me tijdens het lezen beter (middle field)
- concentreren (infinitive at the end)
This “verb at the end” pattern is normal whenever you have a modal verb like willen, kunnen, moeten, etc.
Yes, you have several natural options. All of these are fine:
- Ik wil me tijdens het lezen beter concentreren.
- Ik wil me beter concentreren tijdens het lezen.
- Tijdens het lezen wil ik me beter concentreren.
They mean the same thing. Differences are minor:
- Putting Tijdens het lezen at the start gives a bit more emphasis to the time frame (“while reading”).
- Many speakers prefer the reflexive pronoun me fairly early in the clause (right after the finite verb), which all of these respect.
A less natural version would be:
- ? Ik wil tijdens het lezen me beter concentreren.
That can be understood, but most native speakers wouldn’t choose this order; the pronoun me tends to come right after wil in a neutral sentence.
The preposition tijdens (“during”) needs a noun phrase after it. To turn the verb lezen into a noun-like expression (“the reading”), Dutch usually adds an article:
- het lezen – literally “the reading”
So:
- tijdens het lezen – “during (the) reading” / “while reading”
Without het, tijdens lezen sounds incomplete or ungrammatical in standard Dutch.
They’re very close in meaning, but grammatically different:
- tijdens het lezen – prepositional phrase with a noun
- als ik lees – subordinate clause, literally “when I read / when I am reading”
- terwijl ik lees – subordinate clause, “while I read / while I am reading”
Examples:
- Ik wil me tijdens het lezen beter concentreren.
- Ik wil me beter concentreren als ik lees.
- Ik wil me beter concentreren terwijl ik lees.
All three are natural. Very rough nuances:
- tijdens het lezen is a bit more neutral and compact.
- als ik lees can sound slightly more general (“whenever I read”).
- terwijl ik lees emphasizes simultaneity (“at the same time as I am reading”), often a bit more vivid.
In everyday speech, all three are common and often interchangeable.
Dutch distinguishes:
- beter – “better” (higher quality, more effective)
- meer – “more” (greater quantity or amount)
When talking about concentration, you usually mean quality (“I want to concentrate more effectively / better”), so:
- Ik wil me beter concentreren. – I want to concentrate better.
Ik wil me meer concentreren would be understood as “I want to spend more time/effort on concentrating,” which is possible but less idiomatic in this context. Native speakers almost always choose beter here.
Dutch can use zich concentreren op when you specify what you’re concentrating on:
- Ik wil me tijdens het lezen beter op de tekst concentreren.
– I want to concentrate better on the text while reading.
In your original sentence, the object (“the text / what I’m reading”) is left implicit. That’s completely fine:
- Ik wil me tijdens het lezen beter concentreren.
– It’s obvious from context that it’s on the reading material.
So:
- With an explicit object: zich concentreren op iets
- Without an object: just zich concentreren
No. willen in Dutch means “to want”, not a future auxiliary:
- Ik wil me tijdens het lezen beter concentreren.
– I want to concentrate better while reading.
Dutch usually expresses the future simply with the present tense (sometimes with a time word):
- Morgen lees ik een boek. – I’ll read a book tomorrow.
There is a future-like verb zullen, but ik wil is about desire/intention, not just future time. In your sentence, the primary meaning is “I want…”, though of course that usually implies a future intention.