Breakdown of Waarom staan de kinderen zo hard te schreeuwen?
Questions & Answers about Waarom staan de kinderen zo hard te schreeuwen?
Both are possible, but they are not exactly the same.
- Waarom schreeuwen de kinderen zo hard? = Why are the children shouting so loudly?
- Waarom staan de kinderen zo hard te schreeuwen? also means that, but it adds a stronger sense of an action that is going on right now.
Dutch often uses verbs like staan, zitten, liggen, and lopen + te + infinitive to describe an ongoing action.
So staan ... te schreeuwen suggests:
- the action is in progress
- and sometimes also that they are literally standing while doing it
In many contexts, staan still keeps a bit of its literal meaning (to stand), but it can also function more like a progressive marker.