Negatives and Question Words

To make almost any Spanish sentence negative, place no directly before the verb. There is no equivalent of the English "do/does" — Spanish simply adds no.

Positive	Negative
Hablo español. (I speak Spanish.)	No hablo español.
Ella come carne. (She eats meat.)	Ella no come carne.
Tengo tiempo. (I have time.)	No tengo tiempo.

Nothing may come between no and the verb except an object pronoun:

• No lo entiendo. — I don't understand it.
• No me gusta. — I don't like it.

To answer a yes/no question in the negative, Spanish often uses no twice — once to mean "no" and once before the verb: No, no quiero. (No, I don't want to.)

Unlike English, Spanish allows — in fact requires — double negatives. When a negative word comes after the verb, you must still keep no in front of it.

Negative word	Meaning	Example
nada	nothing / anything	No veo nada. (I don't see anything.)
nunca / jamás	never	No bebo nunca alcohol. (I never drink alcohol.)
nadie	nobody / anybody	No conozco a nadie. (I don't know anybody.)
ninguno	none / not any	No tengo ningún problema. (I have no problem.)

The word ninguno shortens to ningún before a masculine singular noun, exactly like uno → un: ningún libro, but ninguna casa.

Two negatives in Spanish do not cancel out. No veo nada means "I see nothing", never "I see something".

There are two ways to build a negative with words like nunca, nadie and nada. Which one you use depends on where the negative word sits.

• Negative word after the verb → keep no: No viene nadie.
• Negative word before the verb → drop no: Nadie viene.

Both mean "Nobody is coming." The two patterns are interchangeable:

With no (word after verb)	Without no (word before verb)
No como carne nunca.	Nunca como carne.
No ha venido nadie.	Nadie ha venido.

(Higher tier) tampoco means "neither" or "not … either" — the negative of también:

• Yo tampoco. — Me neither.
• No me gusta el té y no me gusta el café tampoco. — I don't like tea and I don't like coffee either.

(Higher tier) ya no means "no longer" (Ya no vivo aquí — I no longer live here) and ni… ni means "neither … nor" (No como ni carne ni pescado — I eat neither meat nor fish).

Spanish question words (palabras interrogativas) always carry a written accent. Learn the full set — they appear in every paper.

Spanish	English	Example
¿Qué?	What?	¿Qué haces? (What are you doing?)
¿Quién? / ¿Quiénes?	Who?	¿Quién es? (Who is it?)
¿Cuándo?	When?	¿Cuándo llegas? (When do you arrive?)
¿Dónde?	Where?	¿Dónde vives? (Where do you live?)
¿Cómo?	How?	¿Cómo estás? (How are you?)
¿Cuánto?	How much/many?	¿Cuánto cuesta? (How much does it cost?)
¿Cuál? / ¿Cuáles?	Which?	¿Cuál prefieres? (Which do you prefer?)
¿Por qué?	Why?	¿Por qué estudias? (Why do you study?)

cuánto agrees like an adjective when it comes before a noun: ¿Cuántos hermanos tienes? (How many brothers do you have?), ¿Cuánta agua bebes?

The accent stays even in indirect questions: No sé dónde está (I don't know where it is).

Spanish questions and exclamations open with an inverted mark and close with a normal one.

• Questions: ¿ … ? — ¿Hablas inglés?
• Exclamations: ¡ … ! — ¡Qué interesante!

The opening ¿ or ¡ goes at the start of the question part, which is not always the start of the sentence: Óscar, ¿vienes a la fiesta?

There are two ways to turn a statement into a yes/no question:

Method	How	Example
Intonation	Keep the word order; raise your voice at the end	¿Tú hablas español?
Inversion	Put the subject after the verb	¿Hablas tú español?

Both are correct and both need the ¿ … ? marks in writing. In the reading-aloud task, a rising pitch at the end signals a question to the examiner.

1. Dropping the second negative

When nada, nunca or nadie follows the verb, you must keep no: No hago nada, not "hago nada". Spanish needs both negatives together.

2. Forgetting the accent on question words

Qué, quién, cuándo, dónde, cómo, cuánto, cuál, por qué all carry an accent in questions and indirect questions. Que without an accent means "that/which", a different word.

3. Confusing qué and cuál

Qué asks for a definition (¿Qué es la fotosíntesis?); cuál asks you to choose (¿Cuál te gusta más?). Before a noun, use qué: ¿Qué color prefieres?

4. Mixing up por qué and porque

¿Por qué? (two words, accent) means "why?"; porque (one word, no accent) means "because". ¿Por qué? — Porque sí.

5. Missing the opening ¿ or ¡

Every Spanish question needs an opening ¿ and every exclamation an opening ¡. Writing only the closing mark loses the point in the exam.