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LANGUAGE LEARNING ARTICLE
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Asking questions the way natives do - A short guide to Spanish intonation Written by Maria Fernandez |
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One of the secrets of successful communication is to use the right intonation. In my experience as a Spanish teacher, intonation is often overlooked, when in fact developing a good intonation is easier than mastering the pronunciation of many sounds, and often equally useful.
In this article I'm going to focus on the intonation in Spanish questions. Let's hear two very different questions from the lessons in this course. Click on them to hear them said by native speakers:
¿A qué hora tenemos que dejar la habitación? what time do we have to leave the room?
¿Qué van a tomar? what are you going to have?
Notice how the intonation in these two questions raises steadily and peaks on the last word. Whenever you ask a question in Spanish, you need to peak on the last word if you want to be understood without trouble, otherwise you'll sound like you're making a statement.
Listen, for example, to this question from the dialogs:
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