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?)