Questions & Answers about Wij eten vandaag in het restaurant.
The translation says "are eating", but where is the "are" in the Dutch sentence?
Dutch doesn't use a separate word like "are" to show that an action is happening right now. The simple verb form eten translates to both "eat" and "are eating".
Why is vandaag (today) placed before in het restaurant?
In Dutch, time words like vandaag almost always come before place words like in het restaurant. A helpful rule to remember is "Time before Place". English usually prefers to put the place first, but Dutch uses the opposite order!
Could I use we instead of wij in this sentence?
Yes, you can! Wij is the emphasized form, while we is the neutral, unstressed form. You use wij if you want to highlight that we are eating at the restaurant (perhaps instead of someone else), but we is extremely common for a standard statement.
How would I turn this sentence into a yes/no question?
To make a yes/no question in Dutch, you swap the subject (wij) and the verb (eten). The verb moves to the very front of the sentence. It becomes: Eten wij vandaag in het restaurant?