Whan month vs. When

[Sweetpumpkin]

Hi,

Please compare these sentences below:

1) When is the festival held?
2) What month is the festival held?

Is 2) correct? It doesn't start with 'when', so I think it should be "In what month is the festival held?" or "What month is the festival held in?". If I'm wrong, please make me right.

Many thanks,
sweetpumpkin

[Alan]

Hi,

In conversation (2) is acceptable.

Alan
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[Marilynjean]

In what month is the festival held

is best.

Good luck!

[Sweetpumpkin]

Thank you for the answers.

[Sweetpumpkin]

Oh, by the way, I have another question.

How about 'What month is the festival held in'?

If it is not preferred to 'In what month is the festival held?', why is that? Maybe.. because of 'in'? If it is right behind 'held', it might be confusing, indicating where the festival held? (like "It is held in Seoul") I'm curious.

Many thanks,
sweetpumpkin

[Marilynjean]

Hi sweetpumpkin,

There's a "rule" in English to avoid having a preposition as the last word in a sentence, but sometimes it's not avoidable. In this case, you can avoid it. But, if you are speaking about spoken English, it's fine. I would avoid using this structure in business or formal English. Hope this helps.

[Sweetpumpkin]

Yeah, I talked about spoken English. Thank you. Your answer helped me a lot!

[Sahid59]

hi sweetpumpkin

may be you can put your sentence in other way like this: " In which month the festival is held..? " Because which is more particular than what, in my opinion..

Thanks for any correction.
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Sahid59

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