In this post we’ll show you the most basic Question Words in Spanish so that you can start making your own questions.

Question Words in Spanish are those words that we will use in order to make information questions. They would be the equivalent to the Wh-questions in English.

Examples of Question Words in Spanish?

Qué

This word means “what” in most cases but it pretty much depends on the context we use it. For example let’s say that our question is: What’s your favorite color? In that case, instead of using “qué” we would pick “cuál” instead. Or if you want to ask: What’s your name? then the question word would be “cómo“. but there are other cases in which you’d use “qué” in the same sense as we use “what”. Let’s say that you want to ask: What are you doing? then in that case you’d say: “¿Qué estás haciendo?“. So this is a tricky one.

Dónde

This one means “where” and it is way easier to use than the previous one. For example if you want to ask: Where do you live? we would say: ¿Dónde vives?

Cuándo

Cuándo means “when” and it is used the same way as it is in English. So for example if the question is: When do you go shopping? in Spanish would be ¿Cuándo vas de compras?

Por qué

Well, this question word means “why” and we have to be very careful to write it as two separated wrods, since the word “porque” means “because“. Let’s say that we want to ask: Why are you running? in Spanish would be: ¿Por qué estás corriendo?

Cómo

This is actually the question word we used in our name Cómo Digo and it means “how“. So for example if you want to ask: How do I say “pencil” in Spanish? we would say: ¿Cómo digo “pencil” en Español?

Quién

This question word means “who” but it’s only used to refer to a single person. For example the question Who are you? would be ¿Quién eres? in Spanish.

Cuál

Cuál is used when asking about options in the sense of “which“, when we refer to limited options; or “what” when we talk about unlimited options. That means that if we want to ask: Which is your bag? we would say: ¿Cuál es tu bolsa?, in which it is implied that both the speaker and listener are looking at the options or are aware of what the options are. However, if we were to ask the question: What is your phone number? we would say ¿Cuál es tu número de teléfono? instead of using “qué”. And in this latter example we are talking about unlimited options.

Questions Words in Spanish Chart

Spanish	English
Qué	What \| Which
Cuál	Which \| What
Dónde	Where
Cuándo	When
Por qué	Why
Cómo	How
Quién	Who

Let’s take a look at some examples:

¿Qué color te gusta? (What color do you like?)

¿Cuál vestido prefieres? (Which dress do you prefer?)

¿Dónde vive tu amigo? (Where does your friend live?)

¿Cuándo viste la serie? (When did you watch the series?)

¿Por qué fuiste a la escuela? (Why did you go to school?)

¿Cómo supiste la respuesta? (How did you know the answer?)

¿Quién te ayudó? (Who helped you?)

Video about Question Words in Spanish

Now, check out this video in order to practice the pronunciation of the words you’ve just learned. It’s important to repeat the words aloud in order to hear yourself and correct your pronunciation.