"lo cuan poco " in my junk mail - General Question
I've read that the word "cuan" is not commonly used. Is it coming back into use? This phrase was used in some spam I received. I've never heard anyone use it in speech. I'm just curious, because if it's in junk mail, it's being widely distributed and it would seem that it's usage would indicate it's being used, at least in writing.
1 Answer
Good morning.
I got a few answers online about this topic...
In Spain, cuán is rarely used in normal, informal speech, though I think it would generally be understood.
To express the same, you can use qué, or lo ... que:
¡Cuán rápidamente caminan las malas nuevas! = ¡Qué rápidamente caminan las malas nuevas!
No puedes imaginarte cuán desgraciado soy = No puedes imaginarte lo desgraciado que soy In questions, in Spain, it is often replaced by cómo de:
¿Cuán grande es tu coche? = ¿Cómo de grande es tu coche?
and this answer to the same question.....
....it would be somewhat out of place to use cuán when you're in Mexico, where it is far more common to say qué tan. For example,
¿Qué tan lejos está el Zócalo?
or
¿Qué tan grande es?
And this from WordReference........
¡Cuán linda es la primavera! (poético o anticuado)
¡Qué linda es la primavera! (más frecuente)
¡Cómo de linda es la primavera! (muy poco usado, mejor usa una de las opciones de arriba)
