Question

1. Ellos caminan a la biblioteca.

Answer 1

Answer :

1. ¿Adónde caminan ellos?

2. ¿De dónde es el profesor de español?

3. ¿Cuántos estudiantes hay en la clase?

4. ¿Quién es compañero de cuarto de Jaime?

5. ¿Dónde es la clase de física?

6. ¿Qué lleva Julia?

7. ¿Cuándo termina el programa de televisión?

8. ¿Por qué estudio biología ?

Explanation:

This exercise is about writing questions in Spanish. Here’s how you do that.

1. Ellos caminan a la biblioteca.

They are walking to the library.

In this first sentence, we want to find out where they are walking. This means we want to know the direction of an action expressed by the verb caminar. In fact, the destination is crucial here, and knowing this helps us choose the correct question word to use.

While one would normally think of dónde, we must remember the destination factor – a la biblioteca. Therefore it is adónde that we are opting for: ¿Adónde caminan ellos?

2. El professor de español es de México.

The Spanish teacher is from Mexico.

What we want to know here is someone’s origin. We learned that it is expressed with the use of the verb ser meaning to be and the preposition de for example: el professor es de México. In order to make a question from the this statement, we should use the question word dónde without forgetting the preposition: ¿De dónde es el profesor de español?  

3. Hay quince estudiantes en clase.

There are fifteen students in class.

Our concern in this sentence is the number of students. There is an adjective we use as a question word to find out the number of countable, and the quantity of uncountable nouns. Student is a countable noun, which means we can count how many of them are there. It is a masculine noun in Spanish and it is in plural form here, so our choice must be cuántos: ¿Cuántos estudiantes hay en la clase?

4. El compañero de caurto de Jaime es Manuel.

Jaime's roommate is Manuel.

We need to know here who Jaime’s roommate is. When the answer to our question is a person, we always use quién. It simply means who and in this sentence it is this simple question we need to make: ¿Quién es compañero de cuarto de Jaime? Remember to put an accent on the e! It is necessary when it comes to question words.  

5. La clase de fisica es en el laboratorio.

The physics class is in the laboratory.

Well, this is an easy one. We need to know the location where the class takes place. Dónde means where and it is just enough in order to find out where something or someone is: ¿Dónde es la clase de física? Remember to use the verb estar when you are asking about the place something or someone is at. Here it is not the case because the class normally takes place in the laboratory. It is not a current location (illustrated by the use of estar) but a general truth.

6. Julia lleva una coputadora portátil.

Julia has a laptop with her.

What does Julia have with her? The laptop is a direct object and when a word a word is a direct object, we must first define if it is a human or a non-human object. Question words normally used for human beings are, as it is mentioned above, quién but for non-humans it’s simply qué, whatever the gender or the number: ¿Qué lleva Julia?

7. El programa de televisión termina en dos horas.

The TV program ends in two hours.

We want to ask when the TV program ends. It means it is a time reference that we need to ask for. The question word required for this is a simple one – cuándo. A complex question word (as we have seen with de dónde or adónde) would be needed if we wanted to know for example since when – desde cuándo. Only cuándo works here: ¿Cuándo termina el programa de televisión?

8. Estudio biología porque hay un examen mañana.

I'm studying biology because I have an exam tomorrow.

The question word we are looking for is right here, in the original sentence! It just needs a little modification. We want to know why: ¿Por qué estudio biología? The right option is por qué – don’t forget the accent!  

When it means because, we write porque, in one word and no accent. But when it means why, it is two words and an accent!  

Accents are important in Spanish. As you can see, they can distinguish a question word from the ones that are not. Happy studying!