1. Asking Questions: Interrogative Words and Sentences

2. Definitions An interrogative word is a word you use to ask a question.
An interrogative sentence is a question.
Pregunta is the Spanish word for question.

3. Interrogative Words People Things ¿quién? who?—singular
¿quiénes? who?—plural
¿con quién? with whom?
¿de quién? whose?
Things
¿qué? what?
¿cuál? which?—singular (or what?)
¿cuáles? which?—plural
¿cuánto, -a? how much?
¿cuántos, -as? how many?

4. Interrogative Words Location Time Reason Description ¿dónde? where?
¿adónde? to where?
¿de dónde? from where?
Time
¿cuándo? when?
Reason
¿por qué? why?
Description
¿cómo? how?

5. Punctuation All interrogative words have a written accent mark.
Spanish questions have question marks both before and after the question.
The question mark at the end of the question is exactly like an English question mark. ?
The “extra” question mark at the beginning of the question is an upside-down English question mark. ¿
If only part of the sentence is a question, the question marks go around only that part of the sentence.
Marco es inteligente, pero ¿es trabajador también?

6. Interrogative sentences
With Interrogative Words
In questions with interrogative words, the verb comes before the subject. The order is:
interrogative word + verb + subject + (rest of sentence)
¿Qué come Elena en el restaurante?
¿Adónde van Uds. después de las clases?
¿Por qué va Ignacio a la playa todos los días?

7. Interrogative sentences
Differences from English
In English, we use the verb do (or its other forms: did, don’t, doesn’t, etc.) to signal that a question is coming.
We do not translate this do into Spanish—English is the only Indo-European language that uses a particular verb to introduce questions. 
In an English question, the subject comes after do and before the action verb. In a Spanish question, the subject usually comes after the action verb.

8. Interrogative sentences
Without Interrogative Words
You don’t always need to use an interrogative word to ask a question.  
For simple questions that can be answered sí or no, you can change a statement into a question just by raising your tone at the end:
¿Ana va a la biblioteca?

9. Interrogative sentences
Without Interrogative Words
To emphasize that you are asking a question, you
can also:
put the verb before the subject:
¿Va Ana a la biblioteca? OR
add ¿verdad? (right?) or ¿no? to the end:
Ana va a la biblioteca, ¿verdad?
Ana va a la biblioteca, ¿no?