question about asking a question.

Question

I just watched the video "1.4 food and regular -er conjugations."

If you conjugate an er verb in the "tú" form for example:

comes
bebes aprendes

One of her examples is asking me what I eat:

¿Comes ______?

I thought "Comes" means "you eat" and not "do you eat?" Does adding the "¿" now makes this a question and adds the "do"

Answer 1

It can certainly be confusing because so many times when starting out, we want to translate word for word.

Yo hablo. In English this can be: I speak or I do speak.

Él habla Español. He speaks Spanish or He does speak Spanish.

So, in reverse:

¿Habla él Español? in Spanish becomes **Does he speak Spanish* in English.

The question mark at the beginning signals that it is a question, and intonation also helps.

So as you asked at first, yes, adding the question mark makes it a question and "adds" the word do. You'll get it!

it is confusing but I'll keep at it and I think it will make more since later. - Handstand_Dan, Apr 7, 2010

Answer 2

Maybe it will make more since later when I'm more knowledgeable. Thanks for the feedback though.

Answer 3

It happens a lot in Spanish. Same word, more than one meaning. It is confusing but the "¿"tells you it is a question. In speaking you would know by connotation and jesture. There are more grammatical answers to this question but that should give you the idea. Stick around, one of the more knowlegable members will chime in I'm sure.

Connotation and jesture... I suspected something like that but not enough exposure to be sure. Thanks for throwing that in though. - Handstand_Dan, Apr 7, 2010

Answer 4

When you put the verb in front of the pronoun to make a question, it becomes "do you______?"

The words do and does are not translated into Spanish. They are sort of built into the verb.

¿Come Marcos manzanas?

Does Marcos eat apples?

Buena suerte....

but if you say "come una manzna" its not a question? - Handstand_Dan, Apr 7, 2010