Asking "When" in Dutch

Learn how to ask "When?"

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Lesson Transcript

Hallo allemaal! Ik heet Gabriella. Hi everybody! I’m Gabriella.

Welcome to DutchPod101.com’s “Nederlands in 3 minuten”. The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Dutch.

In the last lesson, we learned how to ask "Where" questions in Dutch.

This time, we are going to ask "When" questions.

Let’s go!

Imagine you want to ask when your roommate is coming back home. You will ask Wanneer kom je terug?

"When will you come back?"

[slowly] Wanneer kom je terug?

So let’s break down this question.

First we had-

Wanneer, which is the basic translation of "When" in Dutch.

Komen is the verb "to come", kom is in the present tense, as you might remember.

Then je, which is the word for "you".

And finally terug which is "back."

So, all together it is Wanneer kom je terug?

So in Dutch, "When" is translated as the word wanneer. For example, if you want to ask "When were you born?" it would be Wanneer ben je geboren?

As in English, the question word is placed in the first position, then the verb, and then the subject.

So let’s have a look at another example.

How can you say "When did you arrive?"

It is exactly the same pattern – Wanneer ben je aangekomen?

First we have Wanneer, which is "When".

The second word is ben, which is a conjugation of the verb zijn, “to be”. Used with the final verb aangekomen, which means “arrived’, this is the construction for a completed past tense action. Then we have je, “you”.

If you want to ask a question about duration such as "Since when have you been a teacher?", you will have to say Sinds wanneer ben jij leraar?

Here too, it’s exactly the same as in English, because "since" is sinds. So Sinds wanneer? means "Since when?"

Let’s say you want to meet a friend. How would you ask "When shall we meet?" in Dutch? It’s easy because you can translate it directly. It becomes Wanneer zullen we afspreken?

Here we use the verb zullen, which means “shall”. So you can use it when you want to talk about the future. Then we have “we” which is we in Dutch. And finally afspreken, which is the infinitive form of the verb afspreken, which means “to meet”.

But of course, there are other ways to ask about time. You can even be more specific by asking about the year, the date, or the hour.

For example, you can ask-

"When did you start working this month?" which will be Wanneer ben je deze maand begonnen met werken?

Or "When did you travel last year?"

which is

Wanneer heb je vorig jaar gereisd?

Now it’s time for Gabriella’s Insights.

To ask how long an action has been taking place in Dutch, we say Hoe lang. It sounds a lot like “how long” in English! For example Hoe lang heb je gewacht? That is "How long have you been waiting?"

In this lesson, we learned how to use the Dutch word for "When", wanneer, and also a bit about hoe lang.