Breakdown of Hoeveel dagen heeft een week?
een
a/an
hebben
to have
hoeveel
how much / how many
de dag
the day
Questions & Answers about Hoeveel dagen heeft een week?
Does hoeveel mean "how much" or "how many"?
It means both! Dutch uses hoeveel for both countable things (like dagen, meaning "how many days") and uncountable things (like water or time, meaning "how much"). It is literally made by combining hoe (how) and veel (much/many).
Why is the verb heeft placed after dagen instead of right after the question word?
In Dutch, the verb in a question usually takes the second position. Here, the entire phrase hoeveel dagen (how many days) acts as the first building block of the sentence. Because of this, the verb heeft (has) comes right after that whole phrase.
I learned the singular word for "day" is dag. Why does the plural dagen sound like it has a long "a"?
You have a good ear! Normally, short vowels stay short in the plural (which would be spelled with a double consonant, like daggen), but dag is a famous exception in Dutch. Its plural is dagen, and the vowel sound unexpectedly changes from a short "a" to a long "aa".
Is it more common to say "does a week have" (heeft een week) instead of "are there in a week"?
Yes! While you could use a more complex translation for "are there", using the verb hebben (to have) is a very natural and simple way in Dutch to ask what something consists of.