Learn how to ask "Who?"
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| Hola a todos! Soy Lucia. Hi everybody! I’m Lucia. |
| Welcome to SpanishPod101.com’s Español en tres minutos. The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Spanish. |
| In the last lesson, we learned how to ask "When" questions in Spanish. |
| This time, we are going to ask "who" questions. |
| Imagine you want to ask your friend who the girl in front of you is. |
| Here, the question you can ask is ¿Quién es esta chica? |
| [slowly] ¿Quién es esta chica? |
| So let’s break down this question. |
| First we had- |
| Quién which is the basic translation of "Who" in Spanish. |
| es which is "are," the 3rd person form of the verb ser, which we have already learned. |
| esta chica means "this girl." |
| All together, ¿Quién es esta chica? |
| So in Spanish, "Who" is mainly translated as Quién. |
| To ask "Who are these people?" You will say ¿Quiénes son estas personas?. We have to use the plural form for Quién, by just adding -es at the end of the word, Quiénes. |
| As in English, the question word “Who” is placed in the 1st position, and is followed by the verb. |
| Quién can also be used to ask who did something. |
| If you are in a museum for instance, you can ask ¿Quién pintó este cuadro? This means "Who painted this painting?" |
| Another question with Quién that is used a lot is ¿De quién? In this case, the meaning is different because it can be translated to "Whose", where you’re asking about the owner of something. |
| So if you want to ask "Whose pencil is it?" you will have to say ¿De quién es este lápiz? |
| If we break down this question, it is- |
| De quién which is "whose" |
| Es which is the verb ser in the 3rd person present indicative tense. |
| And finally, este lápiz, which means "this pencil." |
| You can also use the word Quién to ask "for whom is it?" In Spanish, we use the formula ¿Para quién? |
| So if you want to know "For whom is this cake?" It would be ¿Para quién es este pastel? |
| Now it’s time for Lucia’s Insights. |
| If someone that you didn't expect is knocking at your door in Perú, the common question you can ask is ¿Quién es? before opening the door. |
| This literally means "Who is it?" |
| Before ending this lesson, Let’s go back and look at all the ways to translate "Who" in Spanish- |
| - Quién is the basic "Who" as in Quién es esta chica? “Who is this girl?” |
| - De quién is asking about ownership, like "Whose" in English. "Whose pencil is it?" De quién es este lápiz? |
| - Para quién, is the direct translation of "For whom?" As in "For whom is this cake?" Para quién es este pastel? |
| In this lesson, we’ve learned how to correctly use the word for "Who" and also some variations. |
| The next lesson will be our last of this absolute beginner series. |
| We will deal with the last question word, "Why". |
| I’ll be waiting for you in the next Español en 3 minutos lesson. |
| Hasta pronto! |
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