いつ and とき how to tell when to use which


My book has one example of the use of the second one; こうこうのとき, いいがくせいでしたか
which essentially is asking when you were in high school were you a good
student though i am confused why こうこう instead of こうこうせい but that is a whole
nother problem.

I doubt its as simple as one is a current tense and one is a past tense when.
perhaps one is the question when and the other is a time when?

I have no idea what to tag this please fix for me.




You're on the right track. いつ is an interrogative, a question word. It's used
to ask when something happened or will happen, not to talk about a particular
time period. In English, we say:

> _When_ I was in high school.

In Japanese, it's:

> こうこうの _とき_

(There's nothing wrong with saying こうこうせいのとき; it's just a little less common,
probably because it's an extra word. In English, you can say, "Back in high
school" or "When I was in high school" or "When I was a high school
student...")

いつ and とき are never interchangeable. For example, you can say:

> じゅぎょうはいつですか。

When is the class? If you replaced いつ with とき, the sentence would make no
sense.




You're on the right track. いつ is an interrogative, a question word. It's used
to ask when something happened or will happen, not to talk about a particular
time period. In English, we say:

> _When_ I was in high school.

In Japanese, it's:

> こうこうの _とき_

(There's nothing wrong with saying こうこうせいのとき; it's just a little less common,
probably because it's an extra word. In English, you can say, "Back in high
school" or "When I was in high school" or "When I was a high school
student...")

いつ and とき are never interchangeable. For example, you can say:

> じゅぎょうはいつですか。

When is the class? If you replaced いつ with とき, the sentence would make no
sense.

