The use of "Usted"

Question

in the following sentence i would like to ask: "where do you eat dinner" for example, but i dont really know where to position the word "usted". i can say for example:"usted donde cenar?" or "donde cenar usted" or "donde usted cenar".

in english its pretty obious where i sould put the word "you" and i am know for sure that i cant say " you where eat dinner" and it seems that in spanish it's alright to say it.

so, anyone can ecplain it to me please? Thank you

Gigantesco, it's important to use correct spelling, capitalization, and punctuation in English and Spanish. That means "I" and the beginning of sentences need to be capitalized. - Leatha, Apr 17, 2011

Answer 1

hi friend

though other notes of other frinds are somehow correct, I think that the usual way to set a question sentence of these kind in spanish, it is in this way:

first: question word, like: qué, quién, dónde,...

then: the verb, like: es, cena, trabaja.

y at the end, the subject, like: usted, Maria, Juan....

so I think this form of questioning is more appropriate for your case:

¿Dónde cena usted?

¿Dónde va a cenar usted?

but be aware that somtimes the question in the case of your kind, that is,"where do you eat dinner", is a question of a normal act of some one, that means you want to ask about the place in which someone usually eat dinner. if so, the appropriate form of question is to ask:

¿dónde cena usted a menudo/normalment?

(and the answer may be this: "a menudo/ siempre tomo la cena en mi casa = I often/allways have dinner in my home ).

Answer 2

With questions like these, where comes first in English and dónde comes first in Spanish. In Spanish, you can put usted before or after the verb. It doesn't matter.

So, you could say ¿Dónde cena usted? or ¿Dónde usted cena? (however, it is more common to put usted after the verb in this case).

However, most people would simply say ¿Dónde cena? and would omit the usted.

you can say " usted donde cenar?" too? - Gigantesco, Apr 17, 2011

No, just like you can't say "you where eat." - webdunce, Apr 17, 2011

Answer 3

Usted ¿A dónde va a cenar? you can leave usted out as the verb congugation conveys the usted form. Where do you go for dinner?