Portuguese Question Words

Intrepid language learners start using Portuguese nearly from day one. I love the attitude and hope you are one of them. Besides bravery, to keep conversations going you need to ask questions.

Put another way, you need to know well the question words and how interrogative sentences work in Portuguese and that’s what this post is all about. We start with open-ended questions – those initiated with a question word – and then we go over to the “yes-or-no” type. Read on.

Open-ended questions 

Open-ended questions are usually initiated with question words (how, why, what, etc.). Let’s take a closer look at them.

Question words

Below, there’s a summary of Portuguese and English question words paired up according to a literal translation. This is, of course, a generalization. Either language has its idiomatic ways of asking questions and such a one-to-one translation scheme won’t always hold. So, keep that that in mind.

Question Word	Usage Example
o que  what	O que fizeste hoje? What did you do today? When standing alone, this question word is pronounced with a more open e-sound, and thus spelled with a circumflex accent on it: O quê? What? When que is followed by a noun, you drop the o: Que dia é hoje? What day is it today?
como  how	Como te correu o dia? How was your day?
quando  when	Quando voltas do Brasil? When are you coming back from Brazil?
onde where	Onde estás? Where are you? Aonde vais? Where are you going?
quem who	Quem ganhou o jogo? Who won the match?
porque   why	Porque não casas comigo? Why don’t you marry me? Like o quê, when standing alone, this question word is pronounced with a more open e-sound, and thus the circumflex accent: Porquê? Why?  Also, the word porque means “because”: – Porque não casas comigo? – Porque não estou apaixonada por ti. – Why don’t you marry me? – Because I am not in love with you.
quanto how much	Quanto é? How much is it? Quanto custa? How much does it cost?
quantos/quantas how many	This question word conforms to the gender of the noun it refers to: Quantos pães comeste? How many bread rolls did you eat? Quantas maçãs compraste ontem? How many apples did you buy yesterday?
qual/quais which	This question word conforms to the number of the noun it refers to: Qual preferes, a saia verde ou a amarela? Which one do you prefer, the green skirt or the yellow? Quais preferes, as camisas de lã ou de algodão? Which ones do you prefer, the cotton or the wool shirts?

Now, let’s look at some aspects of asking questions in Portuguese that you want to be aware of.

Reversed word order

By default, question words initiate the interrogative sentence. However, the reverse is not uncommon. Here are a few reversed sentences from the examples above:

Voltas do Brazil quando?
Estás onde?
Não casas comigo porquê?

No auxiliary

Unlike in English, we don’t need any auxiliary verb to ask open-ended questions: