Breakdown of Quand est-ce que le match commence ?
le match
the match / the game
est-ce que
is it that / do / does (question marker)
quand
when
commencer
to start
Questions & Answers about Quand est-ce que le match commence ?
Why use Quand est-ce que instead of just Quand?
Quand means "when". Adding est-ce que right after it is a very common way to ask a question in everyday French. It acts a bit like the word "does" in English. While you can ask questions using just Quand, adding est-ce que is often easier because it lets you keep the rest of the words in their normal order.
Why does le match come before the verb commence?
The magic of est-ce que is that it turns a sentence into a question without having to swap the subject and the verb around. Because we used it right after our question word, the rest of the sentence stays in the standard Subject + Verb order: le match (the match) simply comes before commence (starts).
Is match really a French word?
Why isn't there an "s" at the end of commence?