Forming Questions with Intonation, Question Tags, and Inversion

In [link to lesson 41- Forming questions with question tags], we saw how to form questions using question words. There are three other ways to form questions, as well. All of these basically involve changing a statement into a question.

Intonation
Just like in English, you can change a statement to a question just by raising your voice at the end. When writing, you simple add question marks to a statement to make it into a question.

Examples:
Vamos al cine el viernes. [We're going to the movies on Friday.]
¿Vamos al cine el viernes? [We're going to the movies on Friday?]

Question Tags
You can add a variety of phrases to the end of a sentence to make a statement into a question. Note that there are question marks around the question tag.
¿No es verdad? [Isn't that so?]
¿No? [no?]
¿Verdad? [Right?]
¿Está bien? [Isn't that right?]
Examples:
Hace sol, ¿verdad? [It's sunny, right?]
Vamos al cine el viernes, ¿está bien? [We're going to the movies on Friday, isn't that right?]
Quieres ir a casa, ¿no? [You want to go home, right?]

Inversion
To convert a statement to a question, you can also switch the subject-verb word order.
Example:
Ustedes van al parque mañana.[You guys are going to the park tomorrow?]
¿Van ustedes al parque mañana? [Are you guys going to the park tomorrow?]
María quiere venir a la fiesta? [Maria wants to come to the party.]
¿Quiere María venir a la fiesta? [Does María want to come to the party?]

Related Links: Word Stress in Spanish Spanish Worksheets Spanish Quizzes Spanish Games Spanish FlashCards