For those who speak a Latin language, the difference won’t be that hard to grasp.
In most Latin languages there’s also two verbs to describe how you know something.For instance in French, there’s ‘savoir’ and ‘connaître’ or in Portuguese ‘conhecer’ and ‘saber’ and so on.
Same goes for other Germanic languages such as German, Swedish or Danish.
But the English equivalent, ‘to know’ is one singular verb.However, as most of us know, there’s a difference!
Let’s have a look at Dutch!
Kennen is commonly used to express you’re familiar with things, or you know something to a deeper extend.
Examples are:
People
Ik ken mijn broer heel goed.
(I know my brother very well.)
Languages
Ik ken Nederlands heel goed, het is mijn moedertaal.
(I know Dutch very well, it's my native language)
Location
Ik ken het stadspark van mijn stad.
(I know the central park of my city.)
Things
Ik ken dit soort boek, het eindigd leuk!
(I know this kind of book, it ends well!)
Weten is commonly used to express you have factual knowledge or data on something. Or to say how you know how to something.
Examples are:
Factual knowledge or data
Ik weet het adres.
Knowing how to do something
Ik weet hoe ik een leuke presentatie maak.
Fun fact!
Old English arose from Germanic languages, in some regions in Scotland they still use ‘kennen’ in a sense of ‘to make known’ or ‘to know’.
Is there a difference in your native language?
Laat het ons weten! 😊
Comentários