Learn Italian: Quando tornano i bambini? - When do the children return?

In Italian questions, the subject often goes at the end of the sentence, especially after question words like quando. While English asks 'When do the children return?', the Italian structure is literally 'When return the children?'.

Where is the translation for the word 'do' in this sentence?

Italian does not use helper words like 'do' or 'does' to ask questions. The single verb tornano covers both 'return' and 'do return'.

How do we know tornano means 'they return'?

The dictionary form of the verb is tornare (to return). When the subject is 'they' (in this case, i bambini), we drop the '-are' ending and add '-ano'.

Why do we need the word i before bambini?

The word i is the plural 'the' for masculine words. In Italian, you almost always need to include 'the' before the subject of a sentence, to show its gender and number clearly.