Learn how to ask "When?"
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| Hej, jeg hedder [name]. Hi everybody! I’m [name]. |
| Welcome to DanishClass101.com’s “Dansk på 3 minutter”. The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Danish. |
| In the last lesson, we learned how to ask "Where" questions in Danish. |
| This time, we are going to ask questions with the interrogative word "When?" |
| Let’s go! Lad os begynde! |
| Imagine you want to ask when your roommate is coming back home. You will ask him Hvornår kommer du tilbage? |
| [slowly] Hvornår kommer du tilbage? |
| So let’s break down this answer. |
| First we had- |
| Hvornår, which is the basic translation of "When" in Danish. |
| Kommer is the verb "to come", at komme in the present tense, as you might remember. |
| Then du, which is the word for "you". |
| And finally tilbage which is "back." |
| So, all together it is Hvornår kommer du tilbage? |
| "When will you come back home?" |
| So in Danish, "When" is translated as the word Hvornår. For example, if you want to ask "When were you born?" it would be Hvornår blev du født? |
| As in English, the interrogative word is placed in the 1st position, then the verb, and then the subject. |
| So let’s have a look at another example. |
| How can you say "When did you arrive?" |
| It’s really simple since it is exactly the same pattern - Hvornår kom du? |
| First we have Hvornår, which is "When" |
| The second word is kom which is the verb at komme in past tense. |
| Finally, du is "you" as always. |
| Have you noticed a difference between the sentences Hvornår kommer du tilbage? and Hvornår kom du? |
| The first one is talking about a future action – "When are you coming back home?" Whereas the 2nd one is referring to the past - "When did you arrive?" |
| The conclusion is that you can use the interrogative word Hvornår to talk about any moment, whether past or present. |
| If you want to ask a question about duration such as "Since when have you been a teacher?" Then you will have to say Siden hvornår har du været lærer? |
| Here too, it’s exactly the same as in English, because "since" is Siden. So Siden hvornår? means "Since when?" |
| Let’s say you want to meet a friend, how would you ask "When shall we meet?" in Danish? It is very easy because you can translate it directly. It becomes Hvornår skal vi mødes? |
| Here we use a verb you have already learned, skal, which is the present tense of at skulle. Then we have “we” which in Danish is vi. And finally mødes which is derived from the verb at møde which means “to meet”. |
| But of course there are other ways to ask about time. You can even be more specific by asking about the year, the date, or the hour. |
| For example, you can ask: |
| - "When did you start working this year?", which will be |
| Hvornår begyndte du at arbejde i år? |
| or |
| - "When is it best for you today?" which will be Hvornår er det bedst for dig i dag? or |
| - "When did you travel in June?" which will be Hvornår i juni rejste du? |
| Now it’s time for [name]’s Insights. |
| To ask how long an action has been taking place in Danish, we say Hvor længe. It sounds a lot like “how long” in English! |
| And the sentence is similar in structure too - Hvor længe har ...? As in Hvor længe har du ventet? That is "How long have you been waiting?" |
| Ok, so in this lesson, you learned how to correctly use the interrogative Danish word for "When", hvornår, and also a bit about hvor længe. |
| In the next lesson, you’ll learn more about asking questions with "Who" in Danish. |
| I’ll be waiting for you in the next Dansk på tre minutter. |
| Til næste gang! |
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