student asking question

Does "when" mean same as "whatever"? Is there any case that "when" and "whatever" can be used interchangeably?

teacher

Native speaker’s answer

Rebecca

"When" and "whatever" are not similar, however the words "when" and "whenever" are. The difference is that "when" is used when the the approximate time or event is known. Ex: You can eat dinner when you finish your homework. In this sentence we know that the time you can eat is when your homework is completed. "Whenever" is used when an event or time is unknown or uncertain. It can also be used to mean "every time" and refer to an event that is repeated. Ex: You can come over whenever you want. Ex: Whenever I'm done baking, I forget to turn the oven off. You can often replace "when" with "whenever", but you can't usually replace sentences that already have "whenever" with "when". Ex: You can eat dinner whenever you finish your homework. However, it would be incorrect to say, "when I'm done baking, I forget to turn the oven off", because "when" does not indicate repetition here.

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