Negatives and Questions

Negatives

Consider the following sentences: Juan estudia mucho. Marta y Antonio viven en Georgia. Rita y el chico necesitan vender la casa. Now let’s make them negative: Juan estudia mucho. Marta y Antonio viven en Georgia. Rita y el chico necesitan vender la casa. no

So how do you make a sentence negative in Spanish? You put “no” in front of the CONJUGATED verb. (Conjugated = verb with –o, -as, -a, etc., to show the subject; NOT a verb ending in –ar, -er, -ir) Juan no estudia mucho. Marta y Antonio no viven en Georgia. Rita y el chico no necesitan vender la casa. Look at the last one. There are two verbs in it (“necesitan” and “vender”), but “necesitan” is the conjugated one and therefore the one that gets the “no” in front of it. And yes, at least 99.9% of the time, the first verb is the conjugated one.

As you may have learned, you can put an extra “no” at the beginning of the sentence: No, Juan no estudia mucho. No, Marta y Antonio no viven en Georgia. No, Rita y el chico no necesitan vender la casa. Here’s the difference between the two: Juan no estudia mucho. = Juan doesn’t study much. No, Juan no estudia mucho. = No, Juan doesn’t study much. So you should put “no” at the beginning only if you want to say, “No,...” which usually isn’t necessary. For example, if I say to you, “Does Juan study much?” you would probably say, “No, Juan doesn’t study much.” But if I say to you, “Why do you think Juan is flunking?” you would say, “Juan doesn’t study much.” Responding, “No, Juan doesn’t study much,” wouldn’t make any sense.

Questions

Let’s look again at the sentences we’ve been working with: Juan estudia mucho. Marta y Antonio viven en Georgia. Rita y el chico necesitan vender la casa. Now let’s make them into questions: ¿Estudia Juan mucho? ¿Viven Marta y Antonio en Georgia? ¿Necesitan Rita y el chico vender la casa?

How do you form a question? You put the conjugated verb first and the subject second: Juan estudia mucho -- ¿Estudia Juan mucho? Marta y Antonio viven en Georgia -- ¿Viven Marta y Antonio en Georgia? Rita y el chico necesitan vender la casa. ¿Necesitan Rita y el chico vender la casa? Look at the last sentence and note that the conjugated verb comes first in the question, the subject comes second, and then everything else stays as it is. When you pick up the conjugated verb and move it, don’t take the second verb with it. Leave it alone! necesitanRita y el chicovender la casa. ¿ ? ↑ Leave this alone!

It’s important to note that questions formed this way are what we call “yes/no” questions, not question-word questions (called “wh- questions” in English: who, what, where, when, why). You answer “yes” or “no” to them: ¿Estudia Juan mucho? -- Sí, Juan estudia mucho. ¿Viven Marta y Antonio en Georgia? – No, Marta y Antonio no viven en Georgia. ¿Necesitan Rita y el chico vender la casa? – Sí, Rita y el chico necesitan vender la casa. You can’t answer yes/no to a question-word question: ¿Cuándo estudias? – Estudio los lunes. ¿Dónde vives? – Vivo en Georgia. ¿Quién come mucho? – Juan come mucho.

So in your homework and on your test, you’re making yes/no questions, not question-word questions. All you have to do is change the order of the words in the statements; you don’t have to add any words. Click here to go to your homework.here