diff --git a/util/check-cocci b/util/check-cocci
index 3a1190e821..8e09d2f7fd 100755
--- a/util/check-cocci
+++ b/util/check-cocci
@@ -15,7 +15,12 @@ ret=0
 for spatch in cocci/*.spatch; do
     patch="$(dirname "$spatch")/$(basename "$spatch" .spatch).patch"
     : > "$patch"
-    spatch --sp-file "$spatch" --use-gitgrep --dir "." --very-quiet --include-headers "$@" >> "$patch";
+    echo "Applying semantic patch $spatch..."
+    spatch --jobs "${TEST_PARALLEL_JOBS:-1}" --sp-file "$spatch" --use-gitgrep --dir "." --very-quiet --include-headers "$@" >> "$patch" 2> cocci.stderr
+    cat cocci.stderr
+    if grep -q -e "parse error" cocci.stderr; then
+        ret=1
+    fi
     if [ "$(< "$patch" wc -l)" -gt "0" ]; then
 	cat "$patch"
 	ret=1
@@ -24,4 +29,6 @@ for spatch in cocci/*.spatch; do
     fi
 done
 
+rm -f cocci.stderr
+
 exit $ret