Sixth Form: Spanish

8. QUESTIONS One of the peculiarities of written Spanish is that we always write an inverted question mark at the beginning of a question: ¿Cómo te llamas? ¿Dónde vives? ¿De dónde venimos, quiénes somos, qué hacemos aquí?

This is simply because, unlike other languages there are no other markers that differenciate between a statement and a question (in other words there is no equivalent to the word “do” in “do you speak English?”), so the upside-down question mark at the beginning is a simple way to indicate that a question follows.

Hablas inglés – You speak English ¿Hablas inglés? – Do you speak English?

Vives solo – You live alone ¿Vives solo? – Do you live alone?

Es su hermana – She’s his siter ¿Es su hermana? – Is she her sister?

Sometimes we turn a statement into a question by adding “¿no?” to the end of that statement: Hablas inglés, ¿no? – you speak English, don’t you?

There are also some adverbs that you need to rememeber: dónde – where adónde – where to cómo – how (or “what…like”: ¿Cómo es tu pueblo? – What is your town like?) cuál or cuáles – which, what, which one cuándo – when cuanto/a – how much cuantos/as – how many qué – what quién(-es) – who por qué – why para qué – what for Qué and cuál can be a bit tricky to use, as they can both mean “what”. When followed by the verb “ser”, cuál usually means which one, whereas qué is used to elicit an explanation or a definition: ¿Cuál te gusta más? – Which one do you like best? ¿Cuál es la capital de Francia? – What is the capital of France? ¿Qué te gusta hacer? – What do you like to do? ¿Qué es una capital? – What is a capital?

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