Questions / Interrogative words

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Last Updated: Thursday, 18 July 2024 01:31
Published: Sunday, 30 July 2023 02:04
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 Questions and interrogative words:

Interrogative words are very essential in any language to form a question. Even if you don't know any other word, you can just use an interrogative word, and get the message across (i.e Where Bathroom?). In spanish, we add question mark ¿ ..... ? around a question. In English, the verb and pronoun placement is interchanged. i.e "You are tall" becomes Are you tall? when phrased as a question. In Spanish, there's lot of flexibility around the order.

There are multiple ways to form a question. Let's explore 3 of them

  • No change in order (keep SVO order): This is the most common way for questions in Spanish. It's different order than what we use in English for asking Questions. Here, there's no difference b/w question and answer, the order in both of them is the same. By keeping SVO order, the emphasis is on the 1st word in sentence, which is the subject. Does Juan read books => Here we translate "Juan reads books", and just raise our inclination at the end, to pose it as a question. So, translation is ¿Juan lee libros? => We are placing emphasis on Juan.
  • Change to English order (VSO order): By changing to VSO order, the emphasis is still on the 1st word in sentence, but here it is the subject. This is how we ask questions in English. Only subject and verb are interchanged. Object remain unchanged no matter where it appears in sentence (it may not necessarily be at the end, it may may be in beginning too). Does Juan read books? => Does read juan, the books? => So, translation is ¿lee Juan libros? => We are placing emphasis on Read (or lee).
    • ex: Which book would you want? => Here "you want" is changed in order to "want you". So, ¿Qué libro quiere usted? (Here object "libro" is in front, remains unchanged)
    • ex: What did the man order? => Here "man ordered" is changed to "ordered the man". ¿Qué ordenó el hombre? (Here there is no object)
  • Informal way: Add "right?" at end: Juan read books, right? OR Juan read books, didn't he? Here we translate the answer as in case 1, but add "no/right" at the end to make it a question.
    • No?: ¿no? => Juan read books, didn't he? => translation is Juan lee libros ¿no? 
    • Right/true? => ¿verdad? (i.e Your name is Jose, right? => ¿tu es nombre Jose, verdad?  ). es verdad => It is true (or right).

In Spanish, most of the times pronoun is not explicitly used. In such cases, both "You are good" and "Are you good?" translate to same thing, except for question mark. ex: You are good => Eres Bueno. But Are you good => ¿Eres Bueno?  is also translated the same, as we omitted the word "tu" for you in both of them. With "tu", it would be ¿Tu Eres Bueno? 

 Link => https://www.thoughtco.com/asking-questions-spanish-3079427

Common Interrogative words: Shown below are common words used for questions. One thing to note that all such words shown below have accent on the vowel. Without the accent, the meaning changes.

  • A verb usually follows the interrogative word, which makes it easy to understand. ex: What is the capital of Peru? => ¿Qué es la capital del Peru? => Here, es verb comes right after interrogative word.
  • When the verb needs a subject other than the interrogative, the subject follows the verb (VSO order). In short, verb always follows the interrogative word. ex: Why did he go to the city? => ¿Por qué fue él a la ciudad? Here él follows the verb. With multiple nouns, some nouns may come before verb, but the noun associated with the verb comes after the verb , i.e How many dollars does he have? => ¿Cuántos dólares tiene el?

 

english spanish ex
what  

¿Qué? => pronounced "kay"

NOTE: que (w/o accemt on e) is used as "to" in verb "have to".

  What is that? => ¿Qué es eso?
which or which one  

¿Cuál / Cuáles? => pronouned kual / kuales, (add es for plural)

NOTE: In spanish, "which" is used in a lot of places where "what" should be used, there's no hard rule about it. Just remember this when interpreting.

Which is your car? – ¿Cuál es tu carro?

What is your profession? => ¿Cuál es tu profesión? (NOTE: Cuál used even though it's what?)

What is the price? => ¿Cuál es el precio? 
when  

¿Cuándo? => pronounced kuaando ("when=Cuándo" and "how many=Cuánto" are similar translations)

 

When is your birthday? – ¿Cuándo es tu cumpleaños?

When is Independence day? – ¿Cuándo es el día de la independencia?
how many or how much

¿Cuánto / Cuántos? =>for masculine noun (singular/plural)

¿Cuánta / Cuántas? =>for feminine noun (singular/plural)

These act like adjective, and need to match gender and number of the noun. Sounds like count.

How much coffee do you have? - ¿Cuánto café tienes? (café is singular maculine)
how  

¿Cómo? => NOTE the accent on o.

NOTE: ¿cómo? is also a common way to say “huh?” in Spanish

  How are you? – ¿Cómo estás? =>This is the most common way to greet someone. See in "general greetings" below.
 where  

¿Dónde?

Where are you? – ¿Dónde estás? (temporary condition, so estar). I'm at home =>  estoy en casa

Where is the store? – ¿Dónde esta la tienda? (where is something => this is temporary condition)

 who

 whose = of who

  

Who => ¿Quién/ Quienes? => pronounced kee-en / kee-enes. (add es for plural). Remember as hindi "kaun" which means who (Quién sounds like kaun)

Whose => ¿De quién/ De quienes? (of who)

 

Who is she? – ¿Quién es ella?

Who are those people? – ¿Quiénes son esas personas?

Whose TV is that? – ¿De quién es el televisor?

Whose shoes are those? – ¿ De quiénes son esos zapatos?
 why / because  

¿Por qué? / Porque => pronouned por-kay

"why" in spanish is 2 separate words (por+que), while "because" is just single word (porque). Basically, if you combine Por+que as 1 word (no accent on e), it becomes "because". Por translates to "because of", while qué translates to what => Porque (accent left out when combining) => because of what => why?

Por also translates to "for" and many other words, but it also means "because of".

Why are you sad? – ¿Por qué estás triste?

Because I’m sick – Porque estoy enfermo

Why not? => ¿Por qué no?
     

 

NOTE: Several of these interrogatives can be preceded by prepositions: a quién (to whom), de quién (of whom), de dónde (from where), de qué (of what), etc.

 

 

Personal "a" in questions: "a" is also added in front of a question. This happens when a question will require an answer with a personal A in response. Then we need to add it in front of the interrogative word. personal "a" can be thought of as English "to" in a loose sense.

 Examples:

  • ¿A Dónde vamos? => Where are we going? "vamos" means "we go", so ¿Dónde vamos? means "where we go?". Response will be "we go to Mexico" or "vamos a mexico", which requires "a" in response (since verb "go" is being done to mexico)
  • ¿A quién crees que engañas? – Who do you think you are fooling? A nadie. – Nobody. Here response is "someone" which is a person.
  • ¿A cuántas clases faltaste? – How many classes did you miss? Falté a cinco clases. – I missed five classes.  Here "verb" miss is being done on classes, which is inanimate, so not sure why "a" used in response.

 

 

Other common questions:

  • Where is the bathroom? => ¿Dónde esta el baño? (verb estar is used, since for location, we use temporary form of "is" which is estar)
  • How much does the dress cost? => ¿Cuánto cuesta el vestido? => Since it's question, verb comes before subject => How much cost the dress?. Response is "the dress costs $100" => el vestido cuesta 100 dólares.
    • And the shoes? => ¿Y los zapatos? . Response is "shoes cost $50" => las zapatos cuestan 50 dólares.