Using big data, we were able to enhance the academic knowledge of two specific factors in verb-spelling errors and to offer evidence-based solutions to long-lasting and persistent problem in Dutch language education.

Writing and verb spelling

For more info on the two projects (‘Study 1: The spelling of homophonic verbs preceding the reduced possessive and personal pronoun je‘ and ‘The spelling of the imperative mood in secondary education’), visit https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/humanities/centre-for-digital-humanities/projects/small-grants-2024-research-projects#alex-reuneker.

In this interdisciplinary project, combining the disciplines of Dutch

Linguistics and Digital Humanities, two student assistants will

search, index and read available literature on Dutch verb spelling,

and they will use and evaluate methodologies from the domain of

Digital Humanities to explore a dataset of 6 million verb-spelling

answers collected by the first supervisor through the non-profit

website Gespeld.nl since 2013.

I’m grateful to Digital Humanities, look forward to working together with two students on the project and by doing so, I hope to enhance our knowledge of spelling difficulties in Dutch verb spelling using data-driven techniques and big-data statistics on data from Gespeld.