Word
Wanneer hadden de kinderen de taart stiekem gegeten?
Meaning
When had the children secretly eaten the cake?
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Wanneer hadden de kinderen de taart stiekem gegeten?
het kind
the child
hebben
to have
eten
to eat
de taart
the cake
Questions & Answers about Wanneer hadden de kinderen de taart stiekem gegeten?
Why do we use hadden here instead of had?
Hadden is the plural past tense of hebben (to have). We use the plural form because the subject, de kinderen (the children), is plural. Together with the past participle gegeten, it forms the past perfect tense: "had eaten".
Why is the verb hadden placed before the subject de kinderen?
Because this is a question starting with a question word (Wanneer). In Dutch, the conjugated verb is almost always the second piece of information in a sentence. Here, the question word comes first, the verb comes second, and the subject is pushed into the third position.
Why does gegeten go at the very end of the sentence?
In Dutch, when you use a helper verb (like hadden) with a past participle (like gegeten), the past participle gets pushed to the very end of the clause. This creates a "verb sandwich" around the other details: hadden de kinderen de taart stiekem gegeten.
How does the word stiekem work as an adverb here?
Stiekem means "secretly" or "on the sly". Unlike English, which often adds "-ly" to turn an adjective into an adverb (secret to secretly), Dutch usually uses the exact same word for both. So stiekem can mean both "secret" and "secretly".