A Quick Guide to Asking Questions in Spanish
How do you ask questions using the Spanish language? Here’s a guide to this essential part of speaking Spanish.
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Check out these 100 common Spanish questions and answers to improve your language skills.The BasicsWord Order and IntonationOne last thing…ConclusionIf any conversation is going to go very far, you have to know how to ask questions. It would be very boring if two people just went back and forth, telling each other random statements about themselves.
Asking questions isn’t just good for that, however. If you travel through a Spanish speaking country, you may want to know things, such as “where are the bathrooms?” and “how much does this cost?”
This article will give you a quick guide to the different rules, structures, and important vocabulary you should know when asking questions in Spanish.
Check out these 100 common Spanish questions and answers to improve your language skills.
The Basics
Let’s start at the very beginning. Like in English, we have two options for asking questions in Spanish. The first is with a “question word.” The other is by changing a statement into a question with just a little shifting around of the words and/or changing the intonation of your voice.
Something distinctive about written questions in Spanish is the opening question mark, ¿. It goes at the beginning of the question, with the closing question mark at the end: ¿Qué quieres hacer? — What do you want to do?
Questions with Question Words
So, let’s start with the first possible way to ask questions in Spanish–with “Question Words” or “Interrogatives.” These are words that make our statement a question. For example, in English we can say “Where is the train station?” In the example, “where” is our question word letting the listener know we are asking for information.
In Spanish our question words are:
Qué- What
Dónde- Where
Cuánto/a- How much
Cuántos/as- How many
Por qué- Why
Cuál- Which
Quién- Who
Cómo- How
Cuándo- When
These interrogative words carry written accents in direct and indirect questions or exclamations. Their unstressed relative or conjunction forms are normally written without the accent.
Example: ¿Dónde está Juan? ¡No sé dónde está!– “Where is Juan? I don’t know where he is!”
Generally speaking, the verb will go right after our question word.
¿Por qué tengo que ir?– Why do I have to go?
¿Dónde está la biblioteca?– Where is the library?
¿Cómo está?– How is he/she/it? OR How are you (singular/ formal)?
You’ll notice that with some questions, it’s pretty clear what we’re talking about. With others, however (the last in the list above, for example), unless we can infer it from the conversation we need to specify a little. In questions like these, the subject normally comes after the verb. Subject placement can vary with the question and the regional variety.
¿Cómo está ella?– How is she?
¿Cómo está usted?– How are you (singular/ formal)?
Word Order and Intonation
Sometimes you may have a question that doesn’t use a question word. This is very common, in both Spanish and English. So, let’s look at how those would be formed.
In Spanish, yes/no questions can keep statement word order; question marks and rising intonation often signal the question. Subject placement is flexible and may change emphasis. However, there is a little more freedom in Spanish as to where those words should go.
For example, the question “Is she going to the store?” could be said:
¿Va a la tienda?– no subject because due to the conversation we’re all aware we’re talking about the subject “she.”
The following are ways of putting in the subject for clarification (in case you weren’t paying close enough attention during the conversation, or you just want to double-check). The form va can refer to he, she, it, or formal singular you.
¿Va ella a la tienda?
¿Va a la tienda ella?
¿Ella va a la tienda?**
You’ll notice that in English, we use an auxiliary or “helping” verb (“is”) whereas in Spanish we do not. Spanish normally uses the simple present here: ¿Va a la tienda? English expresses the same idea with “is going.”
Or, the question “Do you want to go to the movies?” could be said:
¿Quieres ir al cine?– No subject because the conjugation tells us who we are talking about.
The following are examples with the subject. Note: When the verb ending clearly identifies the person (as with quieres, for tú), we usually omit the subject pronoun unless we want contrast, emphasis, or clarification. An explicit tú can add an emphasis like “You want to go to the movies?” (as in, you never want to go to the movies, and I’m surprised!). Pronoun use also varies by region.
¿Quieres ir tú al cine?
¿Quieres ir al cine tú?
¿Tú quieres ir al cine?**
You’ll notice here that the word “do” in English is an auxiliary used to form many present-tense questions. Other than turning the statement “you want to go to the movies” into the question “do you want to go to the movies?”, it adds no separate lexical meaning. In Spanish, we don’t use this type of construction. We can keep or change the word order and use question intonation. A rising ending is common in neutral yes/no questions, but intonation varies by region and by the kind of question.
** These questions have word orders that are identical to their statement forms. In these cases it is VERY important to use the correct intonation, or the listener will be confused.
One last thing…
You can also take a statement and turn it into a question by adding a sort of “question tag” to the end. For example: “You’re coming tonight, right?”
Vienes esta noche, ¿verdad?
Notice how the question marks only go around the part of the statement that is the question.
Tienes que estudiar, ¿no?– You have to study, no?
Voy a la fiesta, ¿y tú?– I’m going to the party, are you?
Conclusion
Asking questions in Spanish is not entirely unlike asking questions in English. The important thing to remember? Your intonation. This is the key!
Word order is a little more relaxed, and (other than the “question words” we looked at before) you don’t have to worry about throwing in any “helping” words along the way. The best way to become more familiar and comfortable with asking questions is simple…by doing it! So, get out there and practice, practice, practice!
