Questions with Que / O Que (What)

English uses a single word — what — for an enormous range of jobs: what book? what time? what are you doing? what? Portuguese splits this work across three closely related forms: que (used immediately before a noun, like English which), o que (used alone, as the subject or object of a clause), and o quê (the stressed form used at the end of utterances or in isolation). On top of that, colloquial PT-PT adds the signature é que reinforcement, so what starts life as o que fazes? becomes o que é que fazes? in nearly every real conversation. This page maps the whole system.

The good news is that this is one of the most logical corners of PT-PT syntax. Once you have the three forms — que + noun, o que alone, o quê stressed — internalised, you can generate every "what" question you will ever need. The bad news is that English speakers systematically overuse que alone in spots where PT-PT requires o que, and underuse the é que pattern that is the main signal of fluent spoken Portuguese. Both errors are easy to hear and immediately mark a speaker as non-native.

The three forms at a glance

Three rules for picking the right one:

1. If a noun follows, use que (no article): Que horas são? Que livro? Que filme?
2. If the word stands alone at the start of the question and no noun follows, use o que: O que fazes? O que é isto? O que disseste?
3. If the word is stressed, stands at the end, or follows a preposition, use o quê (with the circumflex): Fizeste o quê? Estás a pensar em quê? Disseste o quê?!

Que + noun — "which X?" / "what X?"

When que is immediately followed by a noun, it functions like English which or what as a determiner. No article is used between que and the noun.

This pattern is used when the universe of possible answers is open and the speaker wants the listener to name or describe something. When the choice is among a specific, delimited set of alternatives (which of these three?), PT-PT uses qual / quais instead — see the qual / quais page for the distinction.

O que — the standalone "what"

When there is no noun after the interrogative, PT-PT uses o que (literally "the what," but pronounced and treated as a single interrogative word). This is the form you reach for when asking about actions, events, ideas, or things you cannot yet name.

Why "o" and not bare "que"?

Learners often wonder why standalone que sounds wrong. The answer is that bare que at the start of a sentence is typically felt as a conjunction ("that") or as an exclamative ("how ...!"), and speakers need the article o to signal that it is really a question pronoun, not a connector. Que fazes? sounds ambiguous and old-fashioned; O que fazes? is unambiguously interrogative. You can think of the o as the equivalent of the little "is it" you would add in English to force an interrogative reading on an otherwise ambiguous opener.

In very formal written PT-PT (academic prose, legal language) you may still encounter bare que at the start of a question — Que pensais vós disto? — but this has an archaic, literary flavour. In every modern register, o que is the form you want.

O que é que — the colloquial reinforcement (signature PT-PT)

This is the construction that gives spoken PT-PT its characteristic rhythm. In virtually all casual conversation, o que is reinforced with é que, producing o que é que:

The é que is not required — O que fazes? O que aconteceu? O que é isso? are all grammatical — but PT-PT natives produce the reinforced form in roughly 80–90% of casual speech. It is such a strong spoken preference that omitting it can make a learner sound unnaturally formal or brusque.

How "é que" works grammatically

The é que is invariable. Even when the main verb is in the past, future, conditional, or subjunctive, é que stays in the present: the tense is carried by the main verb, not by é.

The construction is a fossilised interrogative cleft — it literally means something like "what is it that you...?" — but in modern PT-PT it has lost the cleft meaning and simply marks the question.

O quê — the stressed form (with circumflex)

When the word sits in a stressed position — at the end of a sentence, alone as a question, or after a preposition — it takes the written form o quê with a circumflex accent on the ê. This is not an optional spelling; it is required by the Acordo Ortográfico.

At the end of a sentence

This end-position construction is more common in colloquial speech than in writing and is often used for emphasis or when the speaker did not catch what was said. Moving the interrogative to the end gives it extra stress.

Alone — "what?"

After a preposition

When a preposition governs the "what", the form depends on whether more material follows. If a verb (or other material) follows, que stays unstressed and takes no accent. If the preposition + interrogative stands alone at the end of a question, quê is stressed and takes the circumflex. The article o is dropped after a preposition in either case.

The preposition, like with quem, must be fronted — you cannot say estás a pensar em quê expecting em to land somewhere else. See the questions with quem page for the full discussion of the no-stranding rule, which applies identically here.

The e/ê distinction — a spelling pitfall

PT-PT distinguishes o que (unstressed, no accent) from o quê (stressed, circumflex). The spelling rule is mechanical:

• If more words follow and the interrogative is unstressed in the phrase: o que (no accent)
• If the word is phrase-final, standalone, or after a preposition: o quê (circumflex)

The spelling matters because Portuguese has another word que (the conjunction "that" and the relative pronoun "that / which") that is always unstressed. The circumflex in o quê / quê is the orthographic signal that you are dealing with the stressed interrogative, not the unstressed conjunction.

Que for exclamations — a parallel use

PT-PT uses que at the start of exclamations, where English uses how or what. This is not a question and does not take o que.

The intonation distinguishes the exclamative que from the old-fashioned interrogative que — exclamatives fall, questions rise. This usage is covered more fully on the exclamations page.

Indirect questions

Embedded "what" questions follow the same distinction as direct ones: use o que when no noun follows, que before a noun.

The é que reinforcement is less common in indirect questions but not impossible: Não sei o que é que ela quer is natural in very colloquial speech.

Comparison table — English "what" mapped

Common mistakes

Key takeaways

• Use que (no article) directly before a noun: Que horas? Que livro? Que dia?
• Use o que (no accent) when the interrogative stands alone at the start of a question: O que fazes? O que aconteceu?
• Use o quê (with circumflex) when stressed — at the end of a sentence, standalone, or after a preposition: Fizeste o quê? O quê?! Em quê pensas?
• The colloquial é que reinforcement (O que é que fazes? / O que é que aconteceu?) is the single most characteristic feature of spoken PT-PT questions. Use it freely in speech.
• For selecting among a specific set of alternatives, use qual / quais, not que.
• Prepositions always front with the interrogative: Em que pensas? / De quê estás a falar? — never stranded.