The Definitive Guide to Asking Questions in Spanish

Asking questions in Spanish can range from simple to quite complex.

While there are lots of straightforward questions in Spanish like ¿cómo estás?, there are more challenging structures for questions that require a careful choice between question words such as ¿qué? and ¿cuál?, or the unfamiliar placement of a preposition.

The main focus (and purpose) of Real Fast Spanish is to help you develop your conversational skills, and there is no better way to improve your conversations than asking better questions.

So, with this in mind, in this post, you’ll learn everything you need to know about asking questions in Spanish including how to ask simple questions in Spanish, how to use each of the main Spanish question words, how to use the Spanish question formula to include prepositions in the right order, and a few important distinctions such as ¿cómo? vs ¿qué tal? and ¿por qué? vs ¿para qué?.

How to ask simple questions in Spanish

In Spanish, the simplest way to ask a question is by taking an ordinary sentence and changing your intonation at the end. We ask questions in this exact same way in English.

Whenever you want to ask a yes/no question, you can simply change your intonation by going up in pitch when you get to the last word of the question.

For example:

English: Isabella speaks Spanish?
Español: ¿Isabella habla español?

And, the answer to this question could be the same sentence without going up in pitch at the end.

English: Yes, Isabella speaks Spanish.
Español: Sí, Isabella habla español.

A really common way to ask questions like this is with the impersonal form of haber, hay which means ‘there is’ or ‘there are’. For example:

English: Is there information about the wineries in this region?
Español: ¿Hay información sobre las bodegas de esta zona?
English: Yes, there is information about the wineries on the table.
Español: Sí, hay información sobre las bodegas en la mesa.

Another common way to ask simple questions is with the tú form or usted forms for the verb.

For example:

English: Do you need help?
Español: ¿Usted necesita ayuda?

English: Do you prefer basketball or baseball?
Español: ¿Prefieres el baloncesto o el béisbol?

The last important idea to consider here before moving on is how to ‘ask a question’ in Spanish. In Spanish, you don’t ‘ask’ questions, you ‘make’ them. For example,

English: Can I ask you a question?
Español: ¿Te puedo hacer una pregunta?

The Spanish question formula

If you want to ask more complex questions in Spanish using Spanish question words, then there is a simple question formula you should follow.

But, before I get to the formula, I want you to think of this common Spanish question:

English: Where are you from?
Español: ¿De dónde eres?

Most Spanish questions follow this exact same formula.

Note that the ‘from’ goes at the end of the question in English and the start of the question in Spanish (de).

In English, we finish questions with prepositions (about, for, from, on, with, etc.) most of the time. In Spanish, you must never finish a question with a preposition.

The Spanish question formula is:

¿(Preposition) + question word + conjugated verb + (subject) + (additional information)?

The brackets indicate that these components of the question aren’t always necessary.

So, if you think of the above question about asking where someone is from, you can create almost any question you want using the same structure.

For example:

English: Who is she speaking with?
Español: ¿Con quién habla ella?

English: What is the chair made out of?
Español: ¿De qué es la silla?
English: It is made out of wood.
Español: Es de madera.

I’m going to give a lot more examples throughout the rest of this article so from now on try to note the position of the preposition, question word, conjugated verb, subject, and additional information.

Before moving on, I will also say that this question formula isn’t the only way to ask questions in Spanish.

But, this structure is extremely common and most students we work with in our classes hadn’t adjusted to it before taking the class, so the key is for you to get as comfortable with it as possible. And if you do, it will help your Spanish to sound much more natural!

Spanish question words: A quick reference

For your reference, in this section, you’ll find a list of the main topics that I’m going to cover in this article with shortcut links that will take you to the relevant sections below.

Here are all the main Spanish question words and topics in this article:

#	Question Word / Topic
1	Where? – ¿Dónde?
2	When? – ¿Cuándo?
3	How much? / How many? – ¿Cuánto/a/os/as?
4	Who? – ¿Quién?
5	How? – ¿Cómo?
6	How? – ¿Qué tal?
7	What? or Which? – ¿Qué?
8	What? or Which? – ¿Cuál?
9	How (adjective)…? – ¿Qué tan (adjetivo)…?
10	Why? vs For what? – ¿Por qué? vs ¿Para qué?
11	How often? – ¿Cada cuánto (tiempo)?
12	More examples & situations with questions in Spanish

Where? – ¿Dónde?

For the rest of the article, we’ll look at each question word in a little more detail.

¿Dónde? is a fairly easy question word to use because it translates well from English question word ‘where?’.

For example:

English: Where are you?
Español: ¿Dónde estás?

English: Where is the train station?
Español: ¿Dónde está la estación de tren?

English: Where is the wedding?
Español: ¿Dónde es la boda?

One of the challenges with ¿dónde? is the choice you have to make between ser and estar.

If you are talking about the physical location of a person, object, or place, then you will need estar.

In contrast, if you want to talk about the location of an event or party, then you will need ser.

Also, if you want to talk about or ask about someone’s place of birth, then again you will need ser.

Another challenge, that is not unique to ¿dónde?, is with using the Spanish question formula when the question needs a preposition.

As I highlighted earlier, most students are comfortable with “¿de dónde eres?“, so take note of how you can use this structure with other ¿dónde? questions.

English: Where does the river pass through?
Español: ¿Por dónde pasa el río?

English: Where are you coming from this evening?
Español: ¿De dónde vienes esta noche?

English: Where are you going (to)? Whereabouts are you going?
Español: ¿Adónde vas?

You can think of ¿adónde? as the contraction of a and dónde, where a is the most common preposition you will need with the Spanish verb ir.

When? – ¿Cuándo?

If you want to ask ‘when?’ something happened or is going to happen, then you’ll need the Spanish question ¿cuándo?.

Here are some examples:

English: When is your birthday?
Español: ¿Cuándo es tu cumpleaños?

English: When are we leaving?
Español: ¿Cuándo nos vamos?

Also, you can also use the question formula with ¿cuándo? and prepositions in order to ask about due dates and durations.

For example:

English: When do you need the report by?
Español: ¿Para cuándo necesita el informe?

English: How long are you on vacation? (Until when)
Español: ¿Hasta cuándo tienes vacaciones?

How much? / How many? – ¿Cuánto/a/os/as?

¿Cuánto? tends to be a little more troublesome than the previous question words because you have to match the question with the number and gender of the noun.

For example:

English: How many pairs of shoes do you own?
Español: ¿Cuántos pares de zapatos tienes?

English: How many people came to the show?
Español: ¿Cuántas personas vinieron al espectáculo?

A very common use of ¿cuánto? is for asking about the prices in the context of a buying or selling something.

English: How much did you pay for this jacket?
Español: ¿Cuánto has pagado por esta chaqueta?

You also have an important distinction to make between asking how much a single item costs and how much all of your items combined cost.

English: How much is it? (this specific item)
Español: ¿Cuánto cuesta?

English: How much is it? (everything, the whole bill / cart)
Español: ¿Cuánto es?

And, here are a few examples with prepositions that you can use with ¿cuánto? and the question formula.

English: How many people is the reservation for?
Español: ¿Para cuántas personas es la reserva?

English: How many friends are you going with?
Español: ¿Con cuántos amigos vas?

I’m also going to cover ¿cada cuánto? in its own section below because it’s another special case.

Who? – ¿Quién?

To ask ‘who?’ questions in Spanish, you can use ¿quién?.

And, similar to the previous question word ¿cuánto?, you also need to match ¿quién? with the number of the noun.

Here are some examples:

English: Who bought the wine?
Español: ¿Quién compró el vino?

English: Who are the girls over by the window?
Español: ¿Quiénes son las chicas junto a la ventana?

And here are some more examples using the question formula:

English: Who are you living with?
Español: ¿Con quién vives?

English: Who is this gift for?
Español: ¿Para quién es este regalo?

How? – ¿Cómo?

The Spanish question word ¿cómo? behaves a lot like the English question word ‘how?’.

For example:

English: How are your parents?
Español: ¿Cómo están tus padres?

English: How do you solve this problem? (How can one solve this problem?)
Español: ¿Cómo se puede resolver este problema?

You can also combine ¿cómo? with the verb ser to ask ‘what something is like?’.

For example:

English: What is your new apartment like?
Español: ¿Cómo es tu nuevo apartamento?
English: It’s very big and has five rooms.
Español: Es muy grande y tiene cinco habitaciones.

English: What is it like to live in Buenos Aires?
Español: ¿Cómo es vivir en Buenos Aires?
English: It is full of people. The rental prices and food are cheap, but it is difficult to find work.
Español: Está lleno de gente. Los precios de alquiler y la comida son baratos, pero es difícil encontrar trabajo. 

How? – ¿Qué tal?

¿Qué tal? can be a difficult question phrase to understand because there isn’t a good direct translation to English. But, you can think of ¿qué tal? as synonymous with ¿cómo? in most circumstances.

For example, I could replace ¿qué tal? in all of the examples in the previous section.

English: How are your parents?
Español: ¿Qué tal están tus padres?

English: What is your new apartment like?
Español: ¿Qué tal es tu nuevo apartamento?

Probably the most well known and colloquial use of this question phrase is when it is used on its own:

English: What’s up? (How’s it going?)
Español: ¿Qué tal?

You can also colloquially use this question phrase without a verb to ask how something specific is going. For example:

English: How’s your head today?
Español: ¿Qué tal la cabeza hoy?

English: How’s the trip going? / How was the trip?
Español: ¿Qué tal el viaje?

Note with this last example the distinction between past and present isn’t always clear from the question itself but it is generally known from context.

You could also use the verb estar in the past if you wanted to make it more clear.

English: How was the trip?
Español: ¿Qué tal estuvo el viaje?

What? or Which? – ¿Qué?

The Spanish question word ¿qué? can translate to the English question word ‘what?’ but it can also translate to ‘which?’ depending on the context.

This is why qué vs cúal needs more explanation than the rest of the other question words in the article. I have already written a detailed article on qué vs cúal and you can read it here.

So, for now, I’m not going to dive into all of the details but I will provide a few examples so you can see this question word in action.

Here are some examples:

English: What is this?
Español: ¿Qué es esto?

English: What do you have in your hand?
Español: ¿Qué tienes en la mano?

English: Which movie do you want to watch?
Español: ¿Qué película quieres ver?

Again, note the challenge with ‘what?’ and ‘which?’ in this last example. It is difficult enough to figure out when to use ‘what?’ and ‘which?’ in English, that’s why I suggest you avoid trying to translate these question words from English and instead learn the structures in the article on qué vs cúal.

What? or Which? – ¿Cuál?

Continuing on from the previous section, ¿cuál? can also mean ‘what?’ or ‘which?’ depending on the context.

Here are some examples:

English: What is your favourite band?
Español: ¿Cuál es tu banda favorita?

English: Which of these options do you prefer?
Español: ¿Cuál de estas opciones prefieres?
English: What are some of the places where the river runs by?
Español: ¿Cuáles son algunos de los lugares por donde pasa el río?

Why? vs For what? – ¿Por qué? vs ¿Para qué?

The next question phrase is the translation of the English question word ‘why?’ which could be ¿por qué? or ¿para qué?.

Of course, por vs para is another important challenge in Spanish because there isn’t a great distinction between these subtly different prepositions in English.

A simple rule to consider is thinking of por to mean ‘due to’ and para to mean ‘in order to’.

Thus, when you are asking questions using these prepositions, you can think of ¿por qué? to ask ‘why?’ or ‘due to what?’ and ¿para qué? to ask ‘for what?’ or ‘in order to what?’.

Here are two examples to demonstrate the difference:

English: Why do you want it?
Español: ¿Por qué lo quieres?

English: What do you want it for?
Español: ¿Para qué lo quieres?

The first question is asking about the motivation for ‘wanting it’ and the second question is asking about the future purpose ‘you want it in order to what?’.

Moreover, the answers to these questions will have the same preposition as the question:

English: Why do you want my mobile?
Español: ¿Por qué quieres mi móvil?
English: Because mine is out of battery.
Español: Porque el mío no tiene batería.

English: What do you want my mobile for?
Español: ¿Para qué quieres mi móvil?
English: To call my mother.
Español: Para llamar a mi madre.

Here are some examples with ¿por qué?:

English: Why are you learning Spanish?
Español: ¿Por qué aprendes español?

English: Why didn’t you go to class last night?
Español: ¿Por qué no fuiste a clase anoche?

Here are some examples with ¿para qué?:

English: What do you want my car for?
Español: ¿Para qué quieres mi coche?

English: What is this device for?
Español: ¿Para qué sirve ese aparato?

How (adjective) …? – ¿Qué tan (adjetivo)…?

Another really useful Spanish question phrase is the combination of ¿qué? with tan and a Spanish adjective to ask how big, how far, or how common something is.

For example:

English: How far is it?
Español: ¿Qué tan lejos está?

English: How important is the presentation?
Español: ¿Qué tan importante es la presentación?

English: How soon can you help us?
Español: ¿Qué tan pronto puedes ayudarnos?

How often? – ¿Cada cuánto (tiempo)?

The English question ‘How often?’ can be translated into Spanish in a few different ways. But, one of the best ways to translate this question is with the Spanish phrase ¿cada cuánto? .

Note this phrase can be used synonymously with or without the word tiempo.

Here are some examples:

English: How often do we get holidays?
Español: ¿Cada cuánto tenemos vacaciones?

English: How often do you visit your parents?
Español: ¿Cada cuánto visitas a tus padres?

English: How often should I change our mattress?
Español: ¿Cada cuánto tiempo debo cambiar nuestro colchón?

More examples & situations for asking questions in Spanish

While I have only focused on two main structures for asking questions in Spanish such as using the simple sentence structure with intonation or the question formula, there are several possibilities for asking questions in Spanish.

In this section, I wanted to show some additional ways of asking questions, and a few different applications.

For example, you could combine the simple sentence structure and question formula:

English: Do you know where Javier is from?
Español: ¿Sabes de dónde es Javier?

English: Do you understand what he is talking about?
Español: ¿Entiendes de qué habla?

Just like English, you can also ask questions in Spanish without wanting answer such as making a suggestion. To do this, you could use ¿por qué no…?. For example:

English: Why not go out tonight?
Español: ¿Por qué no salimos esta noche?
English: Good idea!
Español: ¡Buena idea!

You can also ask rhetorical questions as in the case expressing surprise about something with ¿cómo (es que)…?

English: How is it that we are out of wine already? I bought twelve bottles!
Español: ¿Cómo es que ya no nos queda vino? ¡Compré doce botellas!

Your turn

If you want to improve your conversations in Spanish, there is no better way than asking better questions.

Choose some Spanish questions from this post that use a structure you either haven’t seen before or aren’t quite used to yet and then try it out in your next Spanish conversation.

Can you think of any other structures or applications for asking questions in Spanish?