Spanish question words: qué, cuál, dónde and friends

¡Aventurero!

Who, what, where, when, why. In English you learnt them when you were tiny, and you haven't thought about them since.

In Spanish they come with accents, little words in front and endings that change. ¡Sorpresa! 😅

So let's put all the Spanish question words in one place, in tables, the way I lay out grammar in my Visual Spanish Grammar Book. By the end you'll know which one to use, and why.

1All the question words at a glance

Here they are, with examples from planning a weekend away 🧳

Notice the present tense in ¿Qué hacemos? and ¿Dónde dormimos? Spanish often uses the present to make plans and suggestions, where English says "shall we" or "are we going to".

2Why they all wear an accent

Teacher bit 🤓 The accent on a question word doesn't change how you say it. It's there to tell it apart from its twin without an accent, which does a different job: linking two parts of a sentence.

That last pair catches lots of learners. Por qué, two words with an accent, asks "why". Porque, one word with no accent, answers "because".

The accent stays even when the question is tucked inside a longer sentence: Pregúntale cuándo cierra (Ask him when it closes).

3The ones that change their ending

Three question words change to match what you're asking about, just like adjectives do.

Look at ¿Cuánta gente? English says "how many people", but gente is a singular, feminine word in Spanish, so it's cuánta, not cuántas.

And if you don't know whether it's one person or several, ¿Quién? is the safe choice.

4Qué or cuál?

Both can mean "what", which is why this pair gives so many people a headache 🙈 Here's the picture I use:

• Qué asks for a definition, or goes straight before a noun.
• Cuál picks one from a group, even when the group isn't mentioned.

5The questions that don't translate word for word

English loves "how" + an adjective: how far, how often, how tall. Spanish doesn't just put an adjective after cómo, so ¿Cómo lejos? doesn't work. Learn these as whole phrases instead:

¿Cómo de…? is very common in Spain in everyday conversation. Notice the little de in the middle.

And one that English squeezes into a single word: "whose". In Spanish it's ¿De quién…?, literally "of who": ¿De quién es esta chaqueta? (Whose jacket is this?)

Por qué and para qué are a whole story of their own. You'll find it in por or para: a visual guide.

6Hear them in a conversation

Here's a weekend being planned. Count how many question words you can spot:

Adónde for going somewhere, dónde for sleeping somewhere, cuál for choosing between two hotels, and por qué answered with porque ✨

7Practise them this week

1. 1

   Unpack one sentence

   Take a sentence about your plans, like El sábado voy al cine con Ana a las ocho, and ask every question it answers, out loud: ¿Cuándo vas? ¿Adónde vas? ¿Con quién vas? ¿A qué hora?

2. 2

   Spot the twins

   Next time you read something in Spanish, like a news article or the subtitles of a Spanish TV series, find a qué and a que, then a por qué and a porque. Say each one out loud and decide whether it's asking or linking.

3. 3

   Ask three "how" questions

   Pick three phrases from the "English how questions in Spanish" table, like ¿Cada cuánto…?, and use them to ask about something real: ¿Cada cuánto vas al gimnasio? Ask a friend, a classmate or yourself.

Questions are also what keep a conversation alive. There's more on that in why your Spanish conversations die after two lines.

If tables like these help grammar make sense for you, my Visual Spanish Grammar Book lays out the whole of Spanish grammar this way, with charts and colour-coded examples 📘

Now tell me 👀 Which pair trips you up more: qué and cuál, or por qué and porque? Cuéntame in the comments!

Lucía · Linguist, translator, Spanish teacher and author of the Visual Spanish Grammar Book.
Come and learn Spanish with me and other aventureros like yourself at skool.com/learnspanish 🎉