diff --git a/Makefile.am b/Makefile.am
index 6f049b0ebc..48d5a4e5e6 100644
--- a/Makefile.am
+++ b/Makefile.am
@@ -161,6 +161,12 @@ distcheck-hook:
 			e='yes'; \
 		fi; \
 	done; \
+	for X in `grep -v \# ${distdir}/po/POTFILES.skip` ; do \
+		if [ -f ${distdir}/$$X ] ; then \
+			echo $$X " is in POTFILES.skip but also in the dist.";\
+			e='yes'; \
+		fi; \
+	done; \
 	if test "$$e" = "yes" ; then exit 1; fi;
 
 distclean-local:
diff --git a/po/POTFILES.skip b/po/POTFILES.skip
index 870ea7ff8b..70a1c5dc6c 100644
--- a/po/POTFILES.skip
+++ b/po/POTFILES.skip
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
-# These are files that we don't want to translate.
+# These are files that we don't want to translate, because they are
+# not distributed.
 src/network-utils/gnc-gpg.c
 src/import-export/csv/gnc-csv2glist.c
 src/business/business-core/gncBusPeriod.c