Tenslotte or ten slotte?

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• Tenminste, tenslotte and teneinde
• Teveel or te veel?
• Alweer or al weer?
• Links

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Tenminste, tenslotte and teneinde

Explanation

There are several words, like tenslotte, teneinde and tenminste, that can be written as 1 word or as 2. In the last case ten is written apart from the rest of the word.

The way these words are written determine the meaning. Written apart, they retain their literal meaning, written together, they get a figurative meaning.

Ten slotte vs. tenslotte

The meaning of ten slotte is 'at the end'.
The meaning of tenslotte is 'in the end', 'in fact', 'after all' (I'm not really satisfied with any of these translations, but at the moment I can't think of better ones).

Examples

Tenslotte

De docent bedankte ten slotte alle leerlingen: at the end (e.g. of a meeting, a project) the teacher thanked all his students.

Ten slotte

Je bent tenslotte groot genoeg om dit zelf te kunnen doen : You are in fact big (old) enough to be able to do this yourself (e.g. to a child when he can clean his own room, or do groceries).

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Te veel or teveel?

Explanation

If te veel means 'more than necessary', than the words have to be written separately.

Teveel is written together, if it is a noun.

A little help to determine the correct form

If you can replace te veel by te weinig, and still have a correct sentence, then you need a space between the 2 words.

Examples

Hij heeft te veel gegeten (He has eaten too much).

Er is deze maand een teveel aan regen (This month there has been too much rain).

Te veel zon is niet goed voor de huid (Too much sun isn't good for the skin).

Hij is te veel met Chinees bezig (He is spending too much time on Chinese).

Het teveel aan supermarkten zal leiden tot faillisementen (The excessive amount of supermakets will lead to some of them going broke).

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Alweer or al weer?

Generally alweer is written together if it means 'again'.

The words are written separately if al means 'already'. This combination is used less often.

When written as 1 word, the emphasis is on the second syllable, because the real meaning in that case is weer (again). In this situation al just adds a little extra strength to the construction.

In question sentences with alweer, it often implies a level of irritation:

• Ben je daar weer? (Are you here/back again?);
• Ben je daar alweer? (Are you back *again*?)

If we now use the same sentence, and write the words separately, we get:
Ben je daar al weer? (Are you back so soon? I didn't expect you yet.)

There is 1 other situation in which the words are written separately, and that's in the fixed expression ook al weer:
Hoe heette zij ook al weer? (What was her name, I'm trying hard to remember it.)

This information is from a Dutch article.

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Links

Taaladvies.net

Very clear explanation in Dutch of tenminste, tenslotte and teneinde.

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