Quién and Quiénes | Spanish (Latin America) Grammar

To ask "who?" in Spanish, you reach for quién (one person) or quiénes (more than one person). Both have a written accent — that's what distinguishes the interrogative form from the relative pronoun quien you met a few pages back.

The two forms

Form	Use
quién	singular — one person
quiénes	plural — more than one person

Spanish speakers decide between the two based on whether they expect one or several people in the answer. If you're not sure, it's almost always safer to go with the singular quién.

¿Quién es ese señor?

Who is that man?

¿Quiénes son los ganadores?

Who are the winners?

Only for people

Unlike English "who," which is sometimes stretched to non-human things, Spanish quién is strictly for people. For animals and objects, use qué or cuál.

¿Quién vino a la fiesta?

Who came to the party?

¿Qué pasó en la fiesta?

What happened at the party?

A quién — with the personal a

When quién is the direct object of a verb, Spanish requires the "personal a" — the little word that marks a human direct object.

¿A quién viste anoche?

Whom (who) did you see last night?

¿A quiénes invitaste a la boda?

Whom did you invite to the wedding?

Notice the difference between "¿quién viste?" (wrong) and ¿a quién viste? (right). If the person is being seen — i.e., they are the object of the action — the a is obligatory.

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English whom is disappearing, but Spanish still makes the object distinction clear with a quién. Think of it as a signal: "this person is receiving the action."

After prepositions

Quién and quiénes work well with any preposition. Just put the preposition in front.

¿Con quién hablas por teléfono?

Who are you talking to on the phone?

¿De quién es este abrigo?

Whose coat is this?

¿Para quién es el regalo?

Who is the gift for?

¿Con quiénes fuiste al concierto?

Who did you go to the concert with?

Unlike English, Spanish never strands a preposition at the end of a question. You can't say *¿quién hablas con? — the con must come first. It feels awkward at first, but it's the only correct option.

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English lets you say "who are you talking to?" Spanish insists on "to whom are you talking?" — ¿con quién hablas? The preposition must lead.

Asking about possession: ¿de quién?

Since Spanish has no single-word equivalent of "whose?" as a question, it uses ¿de quién? ("of whom?") instead.

¿De quién es esta mochila?

Whose backpack is this?

¿De quiénes son estos papeles?

Whose papers are these?

Notice how the verb es / son agrees with the thing possessed, not with the person. Esta mochila is singular, so you say es. Estos papeles is plural, so you say son.

Indirect questions

When a question is embedded inside a statement, you still use quién with its accent, even though there's no question mark.

No sé quién es él.

I don't know who he is.

Dime con quién andas y te diré quién eres.

Tell me who you hang out with and I'll tell you who you are. (proverb)

The accent is what makes quién the question word. Without the accent, quien is the relative pronoun ("the one who") — a different use covered on its own page.

Complete list of common question forms with quién

Spanish	English
¿Quién?	Who? (subject)
¿A quién?	Whom? (direct or indirect object)
¿Con quién?	With whom?
¿De quién?	Whose? / Of whom?
¿Para quién?	For whom?
¿Por quién?	By whom? / For whose sake?
¿Sobre quién?	About whom?

Memorize this little table and you'll be equipped for essentially any "who" question you'll need in daily life.

Quién alone as a reaction

Quién can also appear as a one-word reaction, almost the equivalent of English "who?" said with a rising tone when you haven't quite heard or processed something.

—Acaba de llegar Juan. —¿Quién?

—Juan just got here. —Who?

It's short, informal, and perfectly normal in conversation.