If you’ve checked out our first class you’ll know how to introduce yourself and give basic personal information in Spanish. In this class we’ll look at the type of essential Spanish questions you’ll want to ask to someone you’ve just met.
Spanish questions video
If you play the video to the class, you’ll not only be able to listen to our native Spanish speakers, but you’ll get to see them too! I’m also there, giving a few small, but important, grammar tips.
If you can’t get the video to play, or don’t want to view it, don’t worry, we’ll look at all the phrases from the video, and a lot more grammar, in the text+audio class below.
¿Listos? ¡Vamos!
Formal and informal you
Before we launch into the questions, it’s important to make clear that Spanish has not one, but two forms for ‘you’. To complicate matters further, there are also plural forms which are used differently in Latin America and Spain.
Tú – Informal
The pronoun ‘tú’, is used for informal situations in Spain and some of Latin America. If you’re out with friends or acquaintances in Spain this is the form that you’ll use.
Usted – Formal in Spain, General use in Latin America
The pronoun ‘usted’ is used for formal situations in Spain. However, in Latin America ‘usted’ is the default form of ‘you’ for most situations, although this does depend a little on the country.
Separate verb forms for Tú and Usted
Every Spanish verb has a form for ‘usted’ and a form for ‘tú’, although usually the only difference is that the ‘tú’ form has an additional ‘s’ on the end.
Is it ‘tu’ or ‘tú’?
The subject pronoun ‘tú’ is the equivalent of ‘you’ while ‘tu’ (no accent) is ‘your’.
The Questions
So let’s get down to business and look at those essential Spanish questions:
1. Asking someone’s name
In Spain and most of Latin America we use the ‘tu’ form with friends:
- ¿Cómo te llamas?
What are you called?
For formal situations we’ll use the ‘usted’ form:
- ¿Cómo se llama usted?
What are you called?
One cool thing about Spanish questions
Notice that we get to use a fancy upside-down question mark in Spanish questions? This goes at the beginning of ALL questions in Spanish.
2. Asking someone’s age, ‘tú’ form:
- ¿Cuántos años tienes?
¿How old are you?
Asking someone’s age, ‘usted’ form:
- ¿Cuántos años tiene usted?
¿How old are you?
In Spanish we do not use the verb ‘ser‘ (be) with age. We have to use the verb ‘tener‘ (have):
- Correct: ¿Cuántos años tiene usted?
- Incorrect: ¿Cuántos años
esusted?
3. Ask where someone lives (tú)
- ¿Dónde vives?
Where do you live?
Ask where someone lives (usted)
- ¿Dónde vive usted*?
Where do you live?
*Although we have used the word ‘usted’ in our example questions, it is not obligatory. However, we always need to remember to conjugate the verb correctly.
4. Nationality
‘Tú’ form:
- De dónde eres?
Where are you from?
‘Usted’ form:
- De dónde es?
Where are you from?
Word order in Spanish questions can be quite different to English. Did you see how the preposition ‘de’ is used at the beginning of the question? Notice also how we have left out the word ‘usted’ in this question. If the context is clear, there is no need to use ‘usted’ in any of the questions we’ve seen in this section.
Vocabulary
The verbs for this class are the same as those which we saw in class 1. Visit that lesson to see how to conjugate ‘ser’, ‘vivir’, and ‘tener’.
Where now?
We looked at different ways of answering these basic questions in our first class on Basic Spanish Phrases. If you’ve already done that one, how about checking out our first set of Spanish vocabulary resources.
Forming more questions
For loads more examples of Spanish questions take a look at the classes in our Spanish beginner’s class. For all our latest resources for Spanish learners and teachers scoot over to Hablarama’s front page.
