Spanish Interrogatives - Words We Use to Ask Questions

Interrogatives are words that we use to ask questions. Let's see how we ask a question in Spanish. How would we say the following?

Who has the money?

In Spanish the correct form of the question would be "¿Quién tiene el dinero? Notice that we are asking who is doing something. In this case, there is no real action involved, just possession, but we are dealing with the identity of the subject of the verb "has".

Now let's look at another question. How would we say the following?

Who (whom) did you see?

We would have to take into consideration that we are not asking who is doing the seeing, but rather, who is the person that was seen. We want to know the identity of the direct object of the verb "see". In this case we have to remember a rule we learned earlier about using the preposition "a" in Spanish to mark personal (identified humans, sometimes animals, etc.) used as direct objects. Let's review this for just a second.

If I say "I saw the movie", I would say in Spanish, "Yo vi la película".

BUT

If I say "I saw the girl", in Spanish I would have to say, "Yo vi a la chica". We use the preposition "a" before a noun which is the direct object of the verb if it is PERSONAL (has a personal identity).

The same thing happens when we ask the question. In the example given above, we would have to say,...

"¿A quién viste?" We have to place the preposition "a" before the interrogative word "quién" to show that it is the direct object in the sentence. Let's practice making the distinction by doing the following examples. Would we use "quién" or "a quién" in each of the following questions?

Who is the smartest boy in the class?

Who is going to the party with Mary?

Who helped you with your math assignment?

Who did you help with the math assignment?

Now let's look at the use of the word "who" or "whom" when we use prepositions. Just like the case of the direct object, most Americans don't really use "whom" with prepositions, although this is considered the proper form since it is an object. The interesting thing is that if you become accustomed to using the proper forms in English, you will find that the Spanish forms are more easy and natural since they follow much the same pattern. I should mention that in the case of Spanish, EVERYONE, not just professors and teachers use the "correct" form, including people of high school age, grade school, etc. NOBODY uses the pattern which we have apparently accepted as normal use in everyday English.

In English many people would ask, "Who did you buy the gift for?" The English teacher would tell you that the proper form of the question should be, "For whom did you buy the gift?" This is exactly the pattern that we would follow in Spanish. Notice the following translation.

¿Para quién compraste el regalo?" Perhaps if we had paid more attention to what the English teachers were trying to teach us, Spanish would be somewhat easier. Actually, if we were to study other European languages we would find that this basic pattern of question structure with prepositions is very much the norm in a number of them. Perhaps this comes from some fundamental pattern which existed in the language our European ancestors spoke thousands of years ago, even before Latin and Greek.

Let's look at another example. Modern English speaking American young people would probably ask this question in the following way. "Who did you go to the party with?" Again, the "proper" (old traditional) pattern for the question in English would be, "With whom did you go to the party?" And, once more we find that Spanish still follows the basic pattern that "correct" English would use. "¿Con quién fuiste a la fiesta?" This is almost word for word the same pattern in most cases of quetions involving prepositions. I should point out that when people speak this way in Spanish, they are not thinking that this is the "fancy" way of asking the question. It is the ONLY way that people express questions of this type. EVERYBODY, including the plumber, the janitor, the taxi driver, etc. speak this way. Not just the lawyers and the university professors. It is the normal everyday pattern which all people, young and old, will follow in formulating questions.

We could give a huge number of other examples of the same idea, but let's move on to the question "what?". Again, we find that at times it's not quite so simple as substituting one single word each time English uses "what". Let me explain further. In Spanish the word "what" is "qué" (you may have noticed that all question words in Spanish have an accent over them--more about this later). In Spanish the question "what" is somewhat more limited than in English. In Spanish when we ask "what" we have not yet identified the nature of the person or thing. For example, if I ask, "What do you have in the box?", I don't know if it's a coin, a piece of chewing gum, or a rock. I don't really have a particular NOUN in mind when I ask the question. The same kind of question can be asked in Spanish. "¿Qué tienes en la caja?" I am not thinking about any particular kind of thing. I am asking you for an explanation of the nature of the item that you have in the box. This is the important idea. I want you to EXPLAIN to me about the item. Now, let's look at some other examples where we might use "what" in English, but which would NOT use "qué" in Spanish.

"What is your social security number?"

"What is your phone number?"

"What is your address?"

"What is the date?"

Have you caught the idea? I'm not asking you to explain to me what your social security number is. I know WHAT it is. I have been paying social security taxes for years and years. I know WHAT it is. What I really want to know is WHICH ONE is yours? Don't explain to me what it is. Just identify it. Give me the number so I will know WHICH ONE is your number. The same thing is true with the phone number question. I am not asking you to tell me WHAT your phone number is. If I asked "qué", it really sounds odd in Spanish. It sounds like I don't know WHAT a phone number is. I don't want an explanation. I haven't been living under a rock. I really want to know WHICH ONE is yours. Again, with the address, I know that it is a number which is on the front of your house that people use to help locate the place. I don't need for you to explain that. I just want to know WHICH ONE is the number that you have on the front of your house. And likewise, the date. I know that this is the current period of time measured by the rotation of the earth which consists of approximately 24 hours. One date follows another on the calendar and I understand that. My real question is "WHICH ONE is the date today?" Notice that I do have a particular noun in mind here, social security number, phone number, address, date. Unlike the earlier question, I know WHAT KIND of thing I am asking about, and all that interests me is to find out WHICH ONE we are talking about. How about the following question.......

What is your favorite color?

Would you use "qué" or "cuál"? It comes down to this. Do you want me to explain to you that light is identified by it's frequency and is a form of visible radiation? Or, do you actually already know what "color" means and you are just interested in knowing WHICH ONE is the particular color that I like best? The question would be asked using "cuál". I hope that this makes it clear. If it still is a little fuzzy in your mind, you may wish to reread this section, or speak with your teacher and go through some more examples.

Now we come to the question of "where?". This really sound a lot less complicated. "Where" is simply asking for a location, a point or area on the map. But, again, it is a little more complicated than it may appear to be at first glance. The basic word "where" in Spanish is "dónde". Let's see an example of how it's used.

"Where is the church?"

"¿Dónde está la iglesia?"

This doesn't seem to be very complicated. Where is the trouble? Well, let's take a look at another question.

"Where are you going?"

It would seem that we could just follow the same pattern, but if we did so, we would be making a mistake. When there is a verb which expresses movement from one place to another, in Spanish we have to include the preposition "to" which is "a" in the question. In this case, we may find that the current habit that many native English speakers have of saying, "Where are you going to?" might be helpful. Now in this case, the English teacher would tell us that it is not correct to end a sentence with a preposition, and in any case, in English the word "to" is not necessary. "Where" is enough by itself. However, in Spanish, we would put the preposition before the word "where", just like we did with prepositions before "quién" in questions, and we would have the following pattern.

"Adónde vas?" Notice that the preposition "a" is added to the word "dónde" much the same as a prefix, that is it is connected to the front of the word. This is not true with all prepositions. Take a look at the following example, noticing that in English you would use "from" but most people would put it at the end of the sentence, making the English teachers very upset.

"Where are you coming from?"

"¿De dónde vienes?" You may be getting the idea that in Spanish we really DON'T end sentences with a preposition, and for the most part that is correct. Nobody does it. It just doesn't sound right to native speakers of Spanish, no matter what their social or educational level is. Here is another example.

"¿Por dónde fuiste?", translates to, "Through where did you go?" In other words, what route did you take to get there?