Different uses of "que"

Question

Hi,

I was wondering how you can tell whether "que" means: than, that, what or whom?
Sometimes I see it with an accent on the e, however that would only appear to give 2 distinctions; is there a grammar rule here that I should know?

Thanks

Answer 1

And thanks for the examples!

Answer 2

Thanks, I have quite a few more variations to go! Which dictionary do you have by the way? The number of examples makes it sound like it could be a good one (this site has 4! )

Answer 3

It is used for interrogative and exclamative sentences both in direct and indirect style. In English they are normally translated as "what" (sometimes also "how"), whereas the one without the accent is translated as "that". In spoken Spanish, "qué" has always a clear strong tonic accent that "que" doesn't have.

Pregunta a esa persona qué quiere. (ask that person what does he want)
Pregunta a esa persona que quiere. (ask that person that he loves)

Both sentences are read differentely... if you write the accents, of course. Ask a native to read them for you.

Answer 4

Yes, for example:
¡Qué hermosas flores!
¡Qué lástima que no viniste!

and in questions:

¿Qué te gusta más?
¿Qué libro leíste el verano pasado'

Answer 5

I also found out recently that qué , meaning what with an accent is used to distinguish it from that, etc when not used as a question, .

Answer 6

Que is a relative pronoun referring to people and things - who, that

Que is also a conjunction that is sometimes omitted, examples
creo (que) va a venir - I think (that he will come
dijo (que) vendría - he said (that) he would come

Qué with an accent is an interrogative pronoun - what

My dictionary gives about 24 different examples of the above, so as you can see, it is an extremely versatile three letter word.