Interrogative Quem (Who)

Quem is the Portuguese interrogative pronoun for people. It is the direct equivalent of English who and whom rolled into one word. If you want to ask about a person — who did something, who something happened to, who you are talking with — quem is the word. It is one of the first question words you will ever need, and one of the simplest because it never changes its form. The complications are not in the pronoun itself but in how it combines with prepositions, which is where Portuguese and English take different paths.

This page covers the full usage of interrogative quem: how to ask who did something, who someone spoke to, whose something is, and who someone went somewhere with. Every example on this page is a question you might actually hear in a Portuguese conversation.

Quem is invariable

The single most welcome fact about quem is that it never inflects. It does not change for gender, it does not change for number, and it does not change for case. One form covers every situation. Compare this to French qui / qui est-ce qui / qui est-ce que, or German wer / wen / wem / wessen with their four case forms. Portuguese just has quem.

Notice in the second example that even though we are asking about several people, the pronoun stays singular in form — quem, not quens. There is no such word. The verb, however, agrees with the expected answer: quem são aqueles rapazes takes são (plural) because the subject aqueles rapazes is plural. When you are asking about one person, use the singular verb: quem é? When you expect several, use the plural: quem são eles?

Quem as subject of the question

The simplest use of quem is as the subject of the verb — the person doing the action. In this role it sits at the front of the question and is followed immediately by the verb. Portuguese does not need anything equivalent to English does as a helper.

English sometimes inserts a dummy does to build a question (who does it?) — Portuguese never does. The structure is simply quem + verb, with the verb already fully conjugated. There is no Portuguese equivalent of the English auxiliary does; if you try to translate who does the cooking? word by word, you will end up with something unnatural. Just use Quem faz a comida? — one verb, fully conjugated, and you are done.

Quem as direct object

When quem is the object rather than the subject — when you are asking about the person being acted on — it still goes to the front of the question. European Portuguese typically places it there without any helper structure, giving a simple quem + verb + (rest of sentence) pattern. This is one of the places where Portuguese is cleaner than English: you do not need whom versus who distinctions or any auxiliary.

The last example uses the expanded form with é que — quem é que. This is an extremely common pattern in spoken Portuguese and it is worth memorising on its own.

The é que expansion

European Portuguese speakers often expand quem into quem é que — literally who is (it) that — without changing the meaning. It is not more formal; if anything, it is more conversational. Use it freely. The structure is quem é que + the rest of the question in normal statement order.

Quem after prepositions — the crucial point

Here is where quem becomes interesting and where English speakers make their most common mistakes. In English, prepositions routinely drift to the end of the sentence: Who are you talking to? Who did you go with? Who is this letter from? This is called preposition stranding, and Portuguese does not allow it. The preposition must stay attached to quem and travel with it to the front of the question.

The pattern is: preposition + quem + verb + ...

The preposition cannot be left at the end. You cannot say quem falas com? or quem deste o livro a? — both are simply ungrammatical in Portuguese. Your English instinct to strand the preposition will never be right here.

The five most important preposition + quem combinations

These five come up constantly. Internalise them as set phrases before you worry about the less common prepositions.

Let us look at each one in context.

A quem — to whom (indirect object)

A quem asks for the indirect object of a verb — the person to whom something is given, said, sent, or offered. In English this is often expressed as who ... to or in careful prose as to whom.

De quem — whose, about whom

De quem covers two English translations that look very different but are the same preposition in Portuguese. Used with ser, it means whose, asking about ownership. Used with verbs of speaking or thinking, it means about whom.

Note that de quem é este livro? is the normal everyday way of asking whose is this book? In English you can say whose book is this with whose sitting right next to the noun. Portuguese cannot do that — there is no single word for whose as a question. You always have to ask with de quem é...?

Com quem — with whom

Com quem is used constantly in daily conversation — who are you going with, who did you speak with, who is she with.

A special form: when you want to say with me or with you, Portuguese has the fused forms comigo, contigo, connosco. But in interrogatives, you use com quem in the full form, not a fused form — the fusion only happens with the first and second person pronouns of the answer.

Por quem — by whom, for whom (on whose behalf)

Por quem is the question for the agent of a passive verb, or for someone on whose behalf you are acting. It is less common than the others in everyday speech but appears often in literary and journalistic Portuguese.

Para quem — for whom (recipient)

Para quem is about the intended recipient or beneficiary — who is this for, who are you buying this for. Do not confuse para quem (intended recipient) with por quem (cause or agent). If you could answer with for Maria in the sense of this is for Maria, use para. If you could answer with because of Maria or on behalf of Maria, use por.

Other prepositions with quem

Any preposition in Portuguese can attach to quem. Here are several more that come up regularly:

Note the compound preposition ao lado de in the last example: the whole phrase ao lado de quem moves together to the front of the question. This is a very Portuguese pattern and sounds natural — the English translation with who did you sit next to is much clumsier.

Quem with ser for identification

One of the most common uses of quem is to ask who someone is. The structure is quem é + noun or pronoun, or the reverse word order for emphasis.

The last example shows agreement at work: because os teus amigos is plural, the verb is plural — quem são. If you keep the subject singular, use the singular verb.

Quem introducing embedded questions

Quem also appears in embedded (indirect) questions — inside a larger clause. The structure is the same as a direct question, but without the question intonation; there is no need for é que in these cases, though it is sometimes used for emphasis.

Notice that the preposition still attaches to quem even in embedded questions: com quem falaste, not quem falaste com.

Quem in exclamations and rhetorical questions

Beyond neutral questions, quem also appears in rhetorical and exclamatory constructions. These are not asking for information — they are expressing surprise, scepticism, or emotion. Learning to recognise them will help you when you encounter them in real speech.

The last expression, quem me dera, is a fixed idiom meaning I wish. It is one of the most Portuguese of Portuguese phrases and uses quem in a way that is utterly untranslatable literally. Memorise it as a chunk.

Common Mistakes

The last mistake is particularly common because English speakers intuit that quem can stand alone as the object. It can, but only when it is the direct object (quem viste?). For an indirect object — the recipient of the giving, telling, sending — you need the preposition a: a quem deste, a quem disseste, a quem enviaste.

Key Takeaways

• Quem is invariable — no gender, no number, no case endings to memorise.
• It asks about people only, never things.
• When used with a preposition, the preposition must go at the front: com quem, de quem, a quem, para quem, por quem. Never strand the preposition at the end as English does.
• The é que expansion (quem é que...) is natural and conversational — use it freely.
• De quem é...? is how you ask whose is it? — there is no single-word Portuguese equivalent for whose as a question word.