Is the pattern wrong or is it me?

[OliverDominic]

I'm brand new to crochet and I decided to do a project with multiple techniques so that I can teach myself. I've started with a circle and have worked my way up to round 11 where it gets tricky for me. At the end of the last round I had 42 stitches, and round 11 requires decreasing to 36, however the pattern says I need to 2dctog, 5dc, then repeat, but when I do it, it increases my stitches rather than decrease them. The pattern is in UK terms so I shouldn't have had too much of a problem, but can someone tell me what I'm doing wrong?

[bgs]

2dctog means you work into 2 stitches of previous row combining them into 1 stitch on current row thereby reducing your stitch count by 1.

5dc means make 1 dc in each of the next  5 stitches on previous row 

Repeating the sequence 6 times would decrease stitch count from 42 stitches to 36

[Granny Square]

^ What she said.  I can't think of a pattern where an increase didn't say the word increase or 'inc' - usually if it just says 'inc' it means to put 2 into 1 stitch which increases by 1, but if it has a bigger number, like 'inc 2', it means to put 3 into 1 stitch - 1 into 1 would not be an increase, so to increase 1 stitch by 2 additional stitches, you'd have to put 3 stitches into 1.

'x together' always means to combine x number of stitches together into 1 stitch.  Do you know how to do this?  In a nutshell, it means make 1 incomplete stitch, make another incomplete in the next stitch, and so on if it's more than combining 2 stitches, then gathering the last loops of the incomplete stitches together at the end to combine them into 1 stitch 'top'.  There are undoubtedly youtubes out there that demonstrate this.

I strongly suggest that rather than starting with a purposely difficult project to learn on, that instead you make swatches of different techniques to practice on.  (you can turn them into dish scrubbies later if you want) As a beginner your stitches aren't going to be as neat and tidy as they will be when you have a few thousand stitches under your belt (yes, seriously), so you want your first wonky 'getting the hang of it' stitches to be on something that doesn't matter.  Trust me.  Also, depending on how complicated other elements of your pattern might be, you might get frustrated and give up crochet trying to learn everything at once.  

I don't know if you are in the US, this site uses US stitch terms (UK stitch names are the same but mean different things, and yarn weight classes are named differently) but it is a good reference for how to read a pattern and other things - see menu on the right side https://www.craftyarncouncil.com/standards