Spanish: Interrogative Pronouns

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To form questions, the following Interrogative Pronouns are commonly used in Spanish:

  • ¿Qué? - What?
  • ¿Quién? - Who?
  • ¿Cuándo? - When?
  • ¿Dónde? - Where?
  • ¿Cuánto? - How much?
  • ¿Cómo? - How?
  • ¿Por qué?- Why?
  • ¿Cuál? - Which?


In questions, all of these appear at the start of the sentence:

  • ¿Qué estás haciendo? - What are you doing
  • ¿Quién está contigo? - Who is with you?
  • ¿Cuándo vamos a Madrid? - When do we go to Madrid?
  • ¿Cuánto has visto? - How much have you seen?
  • ¿Cómo quieres viajar? - How do you want to travel?
  • ¿Por qué estamos tan solos? - Why are we so alone?
  • ¿Cuál quieres compar? - Which [one] do you want to buy?
  • ¿Dónde está tu perro? - Where is your dog?

While CÓMO means HOW, it can in some cases also mean "how come? / why?":

  • ¿Cómo no lo sabes? - Why don't you know? / How come you don't know?


The difference between QUÉ en CU�?L can at times be quite vague, QUÉ is generally used for asking to a definition or characteristic property while CU�?L is used to ask for content and/or choice:

  • ¿Cuál es una ciudad grande? - What is a big city? (the answer would be a big city, like Mexico City for example)
  • ¿Qué es una ciudad grande? - What is a big city? (the answer would be a definition of a big city)


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Adjective usage

The Interrogative pronouns such as CU�?L and CU�?NTO are more often than not used adjectively:

  • ¿Cuántas semanas has estado ahí? - How many weeks have you been there?
  • ¿Cuántos años tienes? - How old are you? (literally: How many years do you have?)
  • ¿Cuál perro es tuyo? - Which dog is yours?
  • ¿Cuáles casas son tuyas? - Which houses are yours?

This adjective usage of CU�?L however is more seen in Latin-America, in Spain QUÉ is often used instead of CU�?L in adjective constructions, you can see that English often also allows the words WHAT and WHICH to be swapped as well:

  • ¿Qué perro es tuyo? - What/which dog is yours?
  • ¿Qué casas son tuyas? - What/which houses are yours?

QUÉ is also used adjectively, similarly to WHAT in english, in constructions like the following:

  • ¿Qué tamaño tiene tu casa? - What size does your house have? / How big is your house?
  • ¿Qué hora es? - (literally: What hour is it?) - What's the time?

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