Asking simple questions

Question

I have a Spanish final soon and we need to ask my professor questions about on our next oral test. I was going to ask him like what is favorite tv show was and how is his family. How could I set up simple questions? I just want to make sure my sentence structure is right.

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Answer 1

Hello madmagee

Welcome to the SpanishDict forum

You asked:

I have a Spanish final soon and we need to ask my professor questions about on our next oral test. I was going to ask him like what is favorite tv show was and how is his family. How could I set up simple questions? I just want to make sure my sentence structure is right.

In the first example you use the interrogative pronoun ¿Cuál ? with the verb ser (es): ¿Cuál es su programa favorito? = What is your favourite TV show?

In the second example you use the interrogative ¿Cómo ....? with the verb estar

¿Cómo está su familia? = How is your family?

cuál = what/which You would have to decide which one to use, according to the context when translating into English

You use cuál in Spanish when asking a person to choose between a number of options

I have three different coloured shirts here: green, blue and yellow. Which one do you prefer?

Tengo tres camisas de colores diferentes, ¿Cuál prefiere?

You use qué when asking for a definition:

¿Qué son los genes? = What are genes (not the ones you wear lol, but the ones you inherit)

I hope this helps and I hope you do well in your exam

I suggest you wait for some more replies as I am only giving you a very brief overview.

Corrijan mi español, si es necesario