To talk about things happening during a specific season, Dutch uses the preposition in combined with the article de. The four seasons—lente (spring), zomer (summer), herfst (autumn), and winter (winter)—are written with lowercase letters.
When you start a sentence with a time phrase to emphasize when something happens, apply inversion so the verb stays in the second position:
| In spring the flowers bloom. | In de lente bloeien de bloemen. |
| In summer they camp by the beach. | In de zomer kamperen ze bij het strand. |
| In autumn the leaves fall from the trees. | In de herfst vallen de bladeren van de bomen. |
| In winter we see a lot of snow. | In de winter zien we veel sneeuw. |
If you start your sentence with the subject instead, normal word order applies. The time phrase typically comes immediately after the verb.
| We sleep in a small tent in the summer. | We slapen in de zomer in een kleine tent. |
| The evening is very cozy in the winter. | De avond is in de winter erg gezellig. |
In yes/no questions, the verb moves to the front of the sentence, followed by the subject and then the time phrase.
| Do you like to ice skate in the winter? | Schaats jij graag in de winter? |
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