Breakdown of Wanneer hebben ze die foto's gezien?
hebben
to have
zien
to see
die
that / those (de-words and plurals)
wanneer
when
de foto
the photo
ze
they; she (unstressed form of zij) / them (object)
Questions & Answers about Wanneer hebben ze die foto's gezien?
Why is gezien at the very end of the sentence?
In Dutch, when you use a helping verb like hebben (have) to talk about the past, the main action word (the past participle) is pushed to the very end of the clause. That is why gezien (seen) comes last, unlike in English where verbs stay closer together.
Is gezien an irregular verb form?
Yes. The dictionary form of the verb is zien (to see). Regular past participles usually end in -t or -d, but many highly common verbs have irregular past participles that start with ge- and end in -en, like gezien.
Why does foto's have an apostrophe? In English, that usually means possession!
In Dutch, you use an apostrophe before the plural -s if the noun ends in a single vowel letter like a, i, o, u, or y. This tells you to keep the vowel sound long. If you wrote fotos without the apostrophe, the Dutch pronunciation rules would make the final sound a short 'o' instead.
The English translation says 'When did they see', but the Dutch literally translates to 'When have they seen'. Why the difference?
Dutch relies much more heavily on the 'have done' structure (the present perfect tense) for things that happened in the past than English does. While English prefers 'did' for asking questions about a specific past time, Dutch naturally uses a form of hebben plus the past participle.
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