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    Asking Questions in Spanish

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    Mel Trinca
    1) Questions in Spanish use inverted question marks and often have different word order than statements. 2) Spanish uses interrogative words like qué, por qué, and cuándo to ask questions, which have direct English translations. 3) Questions can be formed with or without interrogative words by changing word order or intonation.

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    Asking Questions in Spanish

    Uploaded by

    Mel Trinca
    275 views2 pages
    1) Questions in Spanish use inverted question marks and often have different word order than statements. 2) Spanish uses interrogative words like qué, por qué, and cuándo to ask questions, which have direct English translations. 3) Questions can be formed with or without interrogative words by changing word order or intonation.

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    1) Questions in Spanish use inverted question marks and often have different word order than statements. 2) Spanish uses interrogative words like qué, por qué, and cuándo to ask questions, which have direct English translations. 3) Questions can be formed with or without interrogative words by changing word order or intonation.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as TXT, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as txt, pdf, or txt
    275 views2 pages

    Asking Questions in Spanish

    Uploaded by

    Mel Trinca
    1) Questions in Spanish use inverted question marks and often have different word order than statements. 2) Spanish uses interrogative words like qué, por qué, and cuándo to ask questions, which have direct English translations. 3) Questions can be formed with or without interrogative words by changing word order or intonation.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as TXT, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as txt, pdf, or txt
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    Melissa: Resources

    * asking questions in spanish


    * spanish sentence structure
    * spanish for beginners
    Two of the common characteristics of questions in English are also common in Spa
    nish: They often begin with a word to indicate that what follows is a question,
    and they usually use a word order that is different than that usually used in di
    rect statements.
    But the first thing you may notice about written Spanish questions is a punctuat
    ion difference they always begin with an inverted question mark (¿). With the exce
    ption of Galician, a minority language of Spain and Portugal, Spanish is unique
    in using that symbol.
    The question-indicating words, known as interrogatives, all have their equivalen
    ts in English:
    * qué: what
    * por qué: why
    * cuándo: when
    * dónde: where
    * cómo: how
    * cuál: which
    * quién: who
    * cuánto, cuánta: how much
    * cuántos, cuántas: how many
    (Although the English equivalents are the most common ones used to translate the
    se words, other translations are sometimes possible.)
    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.
    Note that all these words have accents; generally, when the same words are used
    in statements, they do not have accents. There is no difference in pronunciation
    .
    Generally, a verb follows the interrogative. Provided one's vocabulary is suffic
    ient, most simple questions using interrogatives can readily be understood by En
    glish speakers:
    * ¿Qué es eso? (What is that?)
    * ¿Por qué fue a la ciudad? (Why did he go to the city?)
    * ¿Qué es la capital del Perú? (What is the capital of Peru?)
    * ¿Dónde está mi coche? (Where is my car?)
    When the verb needs a subject other than the interrogative, it follows the verb:
    * ¿Por qué fue él a la ciudad? (Why did he go to the city?)
    * ¿Cuántos dólares tiene el muchacho? (How many dollars does the boy have?)
    As in English, questions can be formed in Spanish without the interrogatives, al
    though Spanish is more flexible in its word order. In Spanish, the general form
    is for the noun to follow the verb. The noun can either appear immediately after
    the verb or appear later in the sentence. In the following examples, either Spa
    nish question is a grammatically valid way of expressing the English:
    * ¿Va Pedro al mercado? ¿Va al mercado Pedro? (Is Pedro going to the market?)
    * ¿Tiene que ir Roberto al banco? ¿Tiene que ir al banco Roberto? (Does Roberto
    have to go to the bank?)
    * ¿Sale María mañana? ¿Sale mañana María? (Is María leaving tomorrow?)
    As you can see, Spanish doesn't require auxiliary verbs the way that English doe
    s to form questions. The same verb forms as are used in questions are used in st
    atements.
    Also, as in English, a statement can be made into a question simply by a change
    in intonation (the voice tone) or, in writing, by adding question marks, althoug
    h it isn't particularly common. Él es doctor. He's a doctor. ¿Él es doctor? He's a doc
    tor?
    Finally, note that when only part of a sentence is a question, in Spanish the qu
    estion marks are placed around only the portion that's a question:
    * Estoy feliz, ¿y tú? (I'm happy, are you?)
    * Si salgo, ¿salen ellos también? (If I leave, are they leaving too?)

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