Spanish Interrogatives – Part 1

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Interrogatives, “interrogativos” in Spanish are words used to ask questions to get an specific information from the subject who is asked.

These are the main interrogatives in Spanish:

 

– Qué (What)

– Cómo (How)

– Cuál / Cuales (Which)

– Dónde (Where)

– Cuando (When)

– Cuánto / Cuánta / Cuántos / Cuántas (How much / How many)

– Quién / Quiénes (Who)

– Por qué (Why)

– Para qué (For what)

 

Most of the cases you will be able to use the interrogatives above to ask in the same way you do in English, but there is a important difference in the way we ask in Spanish, this is the word order.

In English, the word order in interrogative sentences is normally inverted respect the affirmations.

Meaning that the verb usually comes before the subject. However, word order is quite free in Spanish existing even regional differences.

This could seem to add difficulty to the business but it does not because you can ask using the same structure that you do when you build a positive sentence and make the difference by changing the intonation.

There is another important thing that maybe you have noticed already, the questions marks.

In Spanish, you should remember to put question mark not only at the end of the question but at the beginning as well.

 

¿Qué?

  • Refers to a noun which is yet unidentified or unknown. When we ask “Qué” you are asking what thing?  Examples:
  • ¿Qué hay en la bolsa? (What is there in the bag?)
  • No sé qué decir (I don´t know what to say)
  • ¿Qué dia es hoy? (what day is today?)

“Qué” as “what” can go with prepositions and you should know as we saw in the section of prepositions that they go at the beginning of the question unlike in English.

  • ¿De qué quieres hablar? (What do you want to talk about?)
  • ¿En qué piensas?) (What are you thinking about?)

Cómo

When we ask “cómo” we are asking “how”asking for an explanation to understand the way something is or “what´s like?” see a few examples:

  • ¿Cómo estas? (How are you?)
  • ¿Cómo se dice “friend” en español? (How do you say friend in Spanish?)
  • ¿Cómo es tu novia? (What your girlfriend look like?)

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We hope we helped with the Spanish Interrogatives. (Spanish info)