Cuando?/A que hora?

Hola Mauricio y Amy, I purchased your materials this past week and am very happy thus far with my choice. I have a question, potentially the first of many -- Both "Cuando...?" and "A que hora...?" are used in the course, written & audio. Is there a particular time to use one or the other, or are they pretty much interchangeable? Gracias, Randy

Hi, Randy! Great question. I'll ask Mauricio what he thinks when he gets back, but this is the distinction as I understand it: The question "¿Cuándo?" means "When?" Use it when you want to know in general when something will be. Answers could be, "Tomorrow," "September 15th," "Wednesday," "Very soon," "in the morning," et cetera. But if you want to know specifically what time something is occuring, use "¿A qué hora?" which means, "At what time?" Your answer will always be a time, such as 5:00, 2:30, et cetera. Think of it this way. If I asked, "¿Cuándo es el concierto? When is the concert," someone might answer me, "Tomorrow," or, "October 10." If I asked, "¿A qué hora es el concierto?" someone might answer, "At five o'clock." So, to see if you understand, which would you use to ask: 1. When someone's birthday is. 2. When the train is leaving. 3. When the college semester starts. 4. When we're going to go to the movies. The answers are: 1. ¿Cuándo? You want to know the DATE of birth, not time. 2. ¿A qué hora? You want to know the specific TIME the train leaves. 3. ¿Cuándo? You want to know the DAY that the semester starts. 4. Ooo, this is tricky. Usually, the question will be framed as, "¿Cuándo vamos? When are we going?" And the answer will be something like, "Really soon," or, "In a couple of hours." If you asked, "¿A qué hora vamos?" you'd be asking for the specific time that you'd all be planning to go. Chances are that the people you're going with never really thought about going at a specific time, more like whenever they got around to going, so the question would sound rather strange! Isn't Spanish lovely? :-) Amy

Gracias Amy, Your explanation makes great sense to me, as "A que hora...?" does seem to imply a more precise question. Yes, Spanish is lovely, but while it is reputed to be one of the "easier" languages to learn, in many ways it is not very intuitive for English speakers. My wife & her family are from Holland, and while I've never made the effort to be fluent, I did learn it rather quickly & easily (less than a year) to the point where I could converse, understand, and watch Dutch TV. The reason being, that while Dutch & German are suposedly more difficult languages, I think they are more intuitive for English speakers. Spanish, I believe is more difficult in that regard with it's grammar rules, verb tenses, etc. Of course, this just makes it much more of a worthwhile challenge. Anyway, along the same line as my first question, how about the use of "Hace cuanto tiempo...?" and "Por cuanto tiempo...?" Is there a difference with these? Thanks, Randy

Hello Randy, You would use ¿Hace cuanto tiempo...? When you want to ask someone how long has it been since they have done something like *por ejemplo*: ¿Hace cuanto tiempo que hablas español? - How long has it been since you've spoken Spanish? or ¿Hace cuanto tiempo que estas aquí? - How long has it been since you been here? On the other hand, you would use ¿Por cuanto tiempo? when you asking how long you been doing or you need to do something for. *Por ejemplo*: ¿Por cuanto tiempo he dormido? - How long have I slept for? or ¿Por cuanto tiempo tengo que practicar? - How long do I have to practice for? There are some situations where you can actually use either (as both questions should get you the same answer): How long has it been since you arrived in Mexico? - ¿Hace cuanto tiempo que llegaste a Mexico? or How long have you been in Mexico for? - ¿Por cuanto tiempo has estado en Mexico? As you can see they are still different questions but require the same answer. Hope that didn't confuse you too much, there are so many different ways you can ask something in Spanish, but remember that you only need to really learn one to get around, but is best to know them all if possible. All the best. Mauricio

Thanks Mauricio. Yes, it is a little confusing, these subtle nuances. First we crawl, then we walk... Randy