About forming questions in spanish and translation

Question

I know in Spanish we eliminate the ‘do you’ and ‘are you’ parts of a question and that the verb comes before the subject. I just wanted to know if a Spanish question can be translated two different ways according to the topic of the conversation.

So can the following questions be translated in such ways.

¿Qué lees? – What do you read? – What are you reading? ¿Qué haces? – What are you doing? – What do you do? ¿Quién escuchas? – Who do you listen to? - Who are you listening to?

Answer 1

Hola, dstmusic,

Almost every thing is right, but remember you need the personal "a" before quién because it is a "person" word.

¿A quién escuchas? Everything else is OK.

Answer 2

Unless you are using the present progressive form (which my Spanish-speaking friends rarely do), helping verbs are included in the main verb. Therefore, each conjugation has multiple meanings.

For example, "comes" can mean the following:

You eat. You do eat. You are eating. Do you eat? Are you eating?

Of course, the intended meaning can be derived from context clues and/or punctuation.

I don't know where your Spanish-speaking friends come from, The California Mexicans use present progressive quite often--even when they are not supposed to do so. There are a few complicated rules which limit the use of Pres. Prog., but my friends ignore - Daniela2041, Dec 4, 2014

these limits at times, and so do I. I would like more information on where they are from, if you know. - Daniela2041, Dec 4, 2014

A PM ,if you wish would,be appreciated. - Daniela2041, Dec 4, 2014

The majority of my Spanish-speaking friends are from Mexico, but some are from elsewhere. Almost every time I have used the present progressive, I have been redirected to the simple present. - tuamiga1973, Dec 4, 2014

I wasn't saying that using the progressive form was wrong, only that my friends do not typically use it. - tuamiga1973, Dec 4, 2014

Answer 3

for the present continuous (are reading, doing and listening to), I'd use the construction estar + gerundio (-ando / -iendo), which'd make for:

hacer - er + iendo = ¿Qué estás haciendo?

escuchar - ar + ando = ¿A quién estás escuchando?

leer - er + iendo = leiendo --> leyendo = ¿Qué estás leyendo?