2.3: Palabras interrogativas

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M. Barrio De Mendoza, K Gutiérrez, H.Ho, C. Lin, & A Stere Lugo
ASCCC Open Educational Resources Initiative

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Forming questions in Spanish

In Spanish, when writing a question, an upside-down question mark (¿) is necessary at the beginning of the question and a regular question mark (?) is used at the end. There are two types of questions that we use:

Yes/No questions.
Questions that require information.

Yes/No Questions

There are four ways to ask a yes/no question:

By adding the question marks to a statement, and raising the pitch of your voice at the end of the sentence:

Statement	Question

Raquel estudia en la biblioteca.	¿Raquel estudia en la biblioteca?

By placing the subject pronoun after the verb:

Statement	Question
subject verb	verb subject
Raquel estudia en la biblioteca.	¿Estudia Raquel en la biblioteca?

By placing the subject pronoun at the end of the sentence:

Statement	Question
subject verb	subject
Raquel estudia en la biblioteca.	¿Estudia en la biblioteca Raquel?

By adding "¿no?" or "¿verdad?" at the end of a statement:

Statement	Question
Raquel estudia en la biblioteca.	Raquel estudia en la biblioteca, ¿no?
	Raquel estudia en la biblioteca, ¿verdad?

Questions that require information

Interrogative words are used to ask questions that require information. These words always carry a written accent mark.

List of interrogative words

Interrogative word	English	Interrogative word	English
¿Adónde?	Where (to)?	¿De dónde?	From where?
¿Cómo?	How?	¿Dónde?	Where?
¿Cuál?, ¿Cuáles?	Which?, Which one(s)?	¿Por qué?	Why?
¿Cuándo?	When?	¿Qué?	What?, Which?
¿Cuánto/a?	How much?	¿Quién?	Who?
¿Cuántos/as?	How many?	¿Quiénes?	Who? (plural)

Girl listening to music — ¿Qué música escuchas?
¿Cuándo escuchas música?

"Women's break" by eommina, Pixabay is licensed under CC0 1.0

Women traveling — ¿Adónde viajan ellas?
¿Quiénes viajan?

"Women" by RoadLight, Pixabay is licensed under CC0 1.0

¡Ojo! "Why?" in Spanish is two words with a written accent: ¿por qué?. The answer "because", is written as one word without the written accent: porque.

¡Un poquito más! Some prepositions are attached to the question word or at the beginning of the question word. These prepositions are: "a" means "to", "para" means "for", "de" means "of" or "from". For examples: "quién/quiénes" mean "who", by adding "de" to "quién/quiénes" --> "de quién(es)" means "whose"; "a quién(es)" means "to whom"; and "para quién(es)" means "for whom".