Hello, today we are going to talk about interrogatives in Spanish.
Interrogatives are used to ask about things, events or people. If you look closely, in Spanish we need to use two question marks(¿?), at the beginning and at the end of the sentence. This is something unique in Spanish language, such as the “ñ” letter. Sometimes interrogatives also carry an accent mark (i.e., ¿Qué), but this is a subject for a more advanced lesson.
There are interrogatives pronouns and interrogatives adjectives. The difference between them is the function they have in the sentence. Adjectives qualify a noun and pronouns replace nouns.
Have a look at the following table:
Concepto/ concept | Interrogativos/Interrogatives | Ejemplos/Examples |
---|---|---|
Cosa/ thing | ¿Qué? – What? | Qué me dijiste? – Te dije que vamos a llegar tarde. What did you say) -I said that we will be late. |
Lugar/ place | ¿Dónde? – Where? | ¿Dónde está mi cuaderno? – No sé, búscalo bajo la mesa. Where is my notebook? -I don’t know, look underneath the table |
Tiempo/ time | ¿Cuándo? – When? | ¿Cuándo es la inauguración? – Mañana en la noche. When is the opening? -Tomorrow night. |
Modo/ mode | ¿Cómo? – How? | ¿Cómo está tu mamá?* ¿Cómo es tu mamá?* How is your mother doing? How does your mother look like ? |
Persona o cosa/Person or thing | ¿Cuál(es)? – Which? | ¿Cuál de los colores prefieres? – Prefiero el azul. Which color do you prefer? I’ll take the blue one |
Cantidad/ amount | ¿Cuánto? – How much? | ¿Cuánto tiempo va a tomarte en llegar? – Me va a tomar una hora en bus. How long is going to take you to arrive? -It will take me a hour by bus. |
More examples of interrogatives:
Always ask for things
To ask about a place, location.
To ask about time
To ask about appearance or mode.
When we have different choices and we have to choose one.
To ask about amount or quantity. This interrogative can change its form depending of the noun that come next.
Cuánto, cuánta, cuántos y cuántas.
To ask about people
As we learnt in previous lessons, interrogatives are present in questions about personal information. Have a look at the following table.
SPANISH | ENGLISH | EXAMPLES | ENGLISH |
---|---|---|---|
Qué | What | ¿Qué lenguas hablas? | What languages do you speak? |
Cómo | How | ¿Cómo estás? ¿Cómo se dice…? | How are you? How do you say…? |
Dónde | Where | ¿De dónde eres? ¿Dónde vives? | Where are you from? Where do you live? |
Quién | Who | ¿Quién es tu hermano? | Who is your brother? |
Cuál | Which What | ¿Cuál es tu número de teléfono? | What is your phone number? |
Cuántos | How many (masculine) | ¿Cuántos años tienes? | How old are you? |
Cuántas | How many (feminine) | ¿Cuántas hermanas tienes? | How many sisters do you have? |
Cuándo | When? | ¿Cuándo estudias? | When do you study? |
Calle Marqués de Cubas, 8, 28014, Madrid, Spain.
+34 91 532 27 15
In the event of any discrepancy between the information on this website and that provided directly by our team, our team’s information shall prevail.
Copyright © TANDEM Madrid. A trademark of Tandem International. All Rights Reserved