Questions & Answers about Wanneer is het feest?
I often see 'als' or 'toen' translated as 'when'. Why do we use wanneer in this sentence?
In Dutch, wanneer is always used for direct questions asking 'at what time'. You use als for 'when' meaning 'whenever' or 'if', and toen for a single event in the past. Because this is a question asking for a time, you must use wanneer.
Is the word order here exactly the same as in English?
Yes! For questions that start with a question word (like who, what, where, when), Dutch uses the exact same order as this English sentence: question word (wanneer) + verb (is) + subject (het feest).
Why is it het feest and not de feest?
Feest is a neuter noun, which means it always takes the article het. There is no simple rule for why it is neuter, so it is best to always learn the word together with its article as het feest.
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