Do we have inversion in Spanish?
In most languages inversion is used as a form of interrogation. Inversion for those who don't know is when the verb takes the place of the subject and vice-versa when we change an affirmative sentence to an interrogative one. For example, the affirmative sentence is "SHE IS beautiful, but in the interrogative form it becomes "IS SHE beautiful?" But as I noticed in spanish we do not mention the subject like in english if we say "where ARE YOU from?" but in spanish we write it like "de dónde ERES" so in this sentence we do do not find the subject specifically. Is it true for all the sentences? If yes does INVERSION exsist in the Spanish language?
3 Answers
When I teach English to Spanish speakers, one of the things we have to go over is "asking questions in English".
Spanish doesn't require the use of a personal pronoun as the subject of the verb as in English, example: hablo = I speak.
Spanish doesn't have the emphatic form of the verb (using a form of the verb to do with the present tense form of the verb). English uses do, does, did, don't, doesn't, didn't when making a question, Spanish has no such form.
When you ask a question in Spanish you raise the tone of your voice on the last word as we do in English.
Hablas inglés. You speak English versus ¿Hablas inglés? Do you speak English.
Is this helpful?
Jubilado hit the nail on the head, but I would also like to mention that Spanish does have a form of inversion that may be used if the speaker chooses.
(forgive me, I cannot make upside down question marks or accents on this computer) Using the same sentence, "do you speak English?": Hablas ingles. ?Hablas ingles? ?Hablas tu ingles? (inversion)
The inversion, from what I understand, is not the most widely used, but my professor would never ask a question without using it.
We have the inverted question-mark, which helps us change the intonation, to make a statement a question.
