The Spanish Question Words
Spanish asks all of its questions with eight words, and they behave as a set: every one carries a written accent, every question they open starts with ¿, and all but two of them never change form. Learn them together and the whole system arrives at once.
The set
| Word | Asks for | Example |
|---|---|---|
| what | ¿ ? (What do you want?) | |
| / | who | ¿ ? (Who is it?) |
| how | ¿ ? (How are you?) | |
| where | ¿ ? (Where do you live?) | |
| when | ¿ ? (When are you coming?) | |
| / | which one(s) | ¿ ? (What is your name?) |
| / / / | how much / how many | ¿ ? (How much money?) |
| why | ¿ no ? (Why aren't you coming?) |
The accent IS the question
Every word in the table has an unaccented twin with a different job, and the accent is the only thing separating them. asks; joins: ¿Qué dices? (What are you saying?) versus Dice que no (He says no). asks; points: ¿Dónde vives? versus la casa donde vivo (the house where I live). , , and all follow the same split.
The rule holds inside indirect questions too, which is where learners slip. No sé qué hacer (I don't know what to do) has no question marks anywhere, but qué is still doing the asking, so it keeps its accent. If you can feel a question hiding inside the sentence, write the accent.
deserves its own line: two words with an accent when asking, one unaccented word - - when answering. ¿Por qué no vienes? Porque no quiero. Why aren't you coming? Because I don't want to.
Each word's job
Most of the set is invariable: , , , and never change, whoever or whatever you ask about. Two members bend:
- takes a plural, quiénes, when asking about more than one person: ¿Quiénes son esos señores? (Who are those men?)
- does the same: ¿Cuáles quieres? (Which ones do you want?)
versus trips English speakers because English uses "what" for both. Qué asks for a definition or an open "what"; cuál selects from a set. Hence ¿Cuál es tu nombre? for "What is your name?" - your name is one pick from all possible names. Directly before a noun, use qué: ¿qué día?, ¿qué hora?
Cuánto agrees like an adjective
is the odd one out: it sits next to a noun and agrees with it in gender and number, exactly as an adjective would.
- ¿ ? - dinero is masculine singular
- ¿ ? - gente is feminine singular
- ¿ ? - años is masculine plural (and this is how Spanish asks your age)
- ¿ ? - veces is feminine plural
Pick the ending from the noun, not from the answer you expect. The four forms are drilled below.
How to use the drills
Exercise 1 works backwards: you see the answer someone gave and pick the question word that must have prompted it. Exercise 2 drills the accent rule on the qué/que pair until the accented form feels tied to asking. Exercise 3 drills cuánto's agreement across its four forms. Say each full question aloud with the rising intonation - the ¿ at the front is your cue that it is coming.
See also
- Demonstratives for ese hombre, esa casa and the rest of the pointing words these questions lean on.
- Noun gender for why it is cuánta gente but cuánto dinero.