‘Cloudless’ and ‘finished’: Great Dictee has two winners

The Great Dictation of the Dutch Language, held today in the Central Library of Rotterdam, has two winners: the 47-year-old text editor Irene Vorstenbosch from Vught and the 26-year-old actor Wouter de Voogd from Rotterdam. Both of them made five mistakes.

The annual dictation was broadcast on the KRO-NCRV radio program The State of Languagepresented by Frits Spits. Twenty Dutch celebrities and twenty listeners took part. In the summer, listeners could win a place in the dictation class by participating in the Game Game. Two listeners had to spell as many words correctly in a minute and a half. The winner was allowed to participate in the Great Dictation.

The text of the Great Dictee was written by the writer and linguist Wim Daniëls and was read by Gerdi Verbeet who was the President of the House.

Among the most famous, program maker Ellie Lust received the best score this year. She had 18 mistakes, followed by comedian Erik van Muiswinkel with 20 mistakes. Audiences made an average of 17 mistakes, with celebrities averaging 27 mistakes.

The Great Dictation of the Dutch Language has existed since 1990. Until 2016, it took place in the first week of December and was televised by the Dutch and Belgian public broadcasters. At the time, sixty people participated, usually forty Dutch participants and twenty participants from Flanders.

The Flemish won 17 times, the Dutch 13 times. Since 2018, the dictation has been broadcast on NPO Radio 1. Only Dutch people participate.