¿Cuánto? is the Spanish interrogative for quantity — the single word that does the work of both English "how much?" and "how many?". Spanish doesn't make the countable/uncountable split that English does at the question word itself; instead, cuánto changes form to agree with whatever it is asking about. That gives four forms: ¿cuánto? / ¿cuánta? / ¿cuántos? / ¿cuántas?.
This is one of the few Spanish interrogatives with full four-way agreement (the others being qué + noun-style structures and the relatives). For English speakers, the agreement is the main thing to internalize. Drop it and you sound like you just learned the word; nail it and your Spanish takes a real step up.
If you want a deeper dive into cuánto as a pronoun (including exclamative use, ¿cuántos? = how many of them?, and cuánto más / cuánto menos comparatives), see the ¿cuánto? pronoun page. This page focuses on the everyday question-asking machinery: which form to use, when it modifies a verb, and the high-frequency expressions you need to drill at A1.
The four forms in one table
| Form | Gender / number | Used with | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| ¿cuánto? | masc. sg. | masc. sg. nouns OR verbs (invariable) | ¿Cuánto dinero tienes? / ¿Cuánto cuesta? |
| ¿cuánta? | fem. sg. | fem. sg. nouns | ¿Cuánta gente había? |
| ¿cuántos? | masc. pl. | masc. pl. nouns | ¿Cuántos años tienes? |
| ¿cuántas? | fem. pl. | fem. pl. nouns | ¿Cuántas hermanas tienes? |
All four bear a written accent on the á/ú in interrogative and exclamative uses, including when the question is embedded inside another sentence.
With a noun: agreement is mandatory
When cuánto is followed by the noun it asks about, it agrees with that noun in gender and number, exactly like an adjective.
¿Cuántos hermanos tienes?
How many siblings do you have? (masc. pl.)
¿Cuántas veces has estado en Madrid?
How many times have you been to Madrid? (fem. pl. — vez is feminine)
¿Cuánto pan compramos para la cena?
How much bread should we buy for dinner? (masc. sg.)
¿Cuánta leche queda en la nevera?
How much milk is left in the fridge? (fem. sg.)
The English speaker's instinct is to use cuántos by default — partly because plural quantity questions feel more frequent in English, partly because Spanish gender is unfamiliar. Override that instinct. The form depends entirely on the noun.
The gente trap
The single most common error here is with the noun gente, which is feminine singular in Spanish even though it refers to many people. Agreement follows the grammar of the word, not its semantics.
¿Cuánta gente había en el concierto?
How many people were at the concert? — Cuánta (fem. sg.), because gente is grammatically singular.
❌ ¿Cuántas gentes había en el concierto?
Wrong — gente is not pluralised in this meaning, and the agreement is singular.
❌ ¿Cuántos gente había?
Wrong — gente is feminine, not masculine.
The same logic applies to other singular collective nouns: familia, multitud, mayoría (all feminine), público, equipo (both masculine).
With a verb (no noun): invariable masculine singular
When cuánto is modifying a verb rather than a noun — asking about the extent or amount of an action — it stays in the masculine singular form, regardless of any noun that might be lurking nearby in the sentence.
¿Cuánto cuesta este móvil?
How much does this mobile phone cost?
¿Cuánto vale la entrada al museo?
How much is the museum ticket? — Stays cuánto even though entrada is feminine; cuánto modifies vale, not entrada.
¿Cuánto has dormido esta noche?
How much did you sleep last night?
¿Cuánto tardas en llegar al trabajo?
How long does it take you to get to work?
¿Cuánto pesas?
How much do you weigh?
In these sentences, cuánto is grammatically an adverb modifying cuesta, vale, has dormido, tardas, pesas. There is no noun to agree with, so the default masculine singular wins.
The ¿cuánto vale la entrada? case is the one that trips learners up. Surely entrada (feminine) is what we're asking about? Grammatically, no — we're asking how much the verb vale yields, with la entrada as its subject. Cuánto attaches to the verb, not the subject. The same reasoning gives ¿cuánto cuestan las manzanas? — cuánto invariable, cuestan plural agreeing with manzanas.
High-frequency cuánto questions to memorize
A handful of cuánto questions are so common in everyday Spanish that they are worth treating as fixed expressions.
Age — tener años
¿Cuántos años tienes?
How old are you? (lit. how many years do you have)
¿Cuántos años tiene tu abuela?
How old is your grandmother?
Spanish encodes age with tener, not ser — you have years, you don't are them. The answer follows the same pattern: Tengo veintinueve años. This is a structural difference from English worth memorising once and for all.
Cost
¿Cuánto cuesta? — Diez euros.
How much is it? — Ten euros.
¿Cuánto vale? / ¿Cuánto vale esto?
How much does it cost? / How much is this? — Vale and cuesta are interchangeable; vale is very common in Spain.
¿Cuánto es? — Son quince con cincuenta.
How much is it (the total)? — That'll be fifteen fifty. — Standard at the till.
Three near-synonyms — cuesta, vale, es — used almost interchangeably in shops and restaurants. Vale and es are particularly Spanish (rather than Latin American), and ¿cuánto es? is the standard prompt for the total at a cash register.
Time elapsed and duration
¿Cuánto tiempo llevas en Madrid?
How long have you been in Madrid? — Llevar + period of time is the everyday peninsular construction.
¿Cuánto hace que vives aquí?
How long have you lived here? (lit. how long has it been that you live here)
¿Cuánto dura la película?
How long does the film last?
¿Cuánto se tarda en llegar?
How long does it take to get there?
Note how Spanish uses cuánto tiempo, cuánto hace, cuánto dura, cuánto se tarda — different verbs, all carrying the same general question: how long?. The choice between them is mostly idiomatic.
With prepositions: ¿por cuánto?, ¿en cuánto?, ¿a cuánto?
Prepositions go in front of cuánto, never trailing. This mirrors the behaviour of all Spanish interrogatives — Spanish strictly does not strand prepositions at the end of a clause.
| Form | Meaning |
|---|---|
| ¿por cuánto? | for how much (price paid or received) |
| ¿en cuánto? | in how much, for how much (offering) |
| ¿a cuánto? | at what price, at what rate |
| ¿de cuánto? | of how much, in what amount |
¿Por cuánto vendiste el coche al final?
How much did you sell the car for in the end?
¿A cuánto está el kilo de tomates hoy?
What's the price per kilo of tomatoes today?
¿De cuánto es la factura de la luz este mes?
How much is the electricity bill this month? (lit. of how much is the bill)
English-speaker reflex: how much did you sell it for?, with the for trailing. In Spanish, that for (por) must move to the front: ¿por cuánto?. Same logic as ¿de dónde? (where from), ¿con quién? (who with).
Embedded (indirect) questions: accent stays
When the cuánto question is embedded inside another sentence (after verbs like saber, preguntar, decir, contar, no recordar), the question marks disappear — but the accent on cuánto stays.
No sé cuántos años tiene Pablo.
I don't know how old Pablo is. — Embedded question; accent on cuántos stays.
Me preguntó cuánto costaba el billete.
He asked me how much the ticket cost.
No me acuerdo de cuántas veces te lo he dicho.
I don't remember how many times I've told you.
This is a place where learners habitually drop the accent because it no longer looks like a question. Don't. The interrogative force is still there.
The accent rule in one sentence
Cuánto, cuánta, cuántos, cuántas with accent = interrogative or exclamative ("how much / many" or "how much!"). Cuanto, cuanta, cuantos, cuantas without accent = relative ("as much as, all that"). The accentless forms turn up in patterns like todo cuanto sé (everything I know), cuanto antes (as soon as possible), and cuanto más... más... (the more... the more...). Asking a question? Accent. Comparing or relating? No accent.
Common mistakes
❌ ¿Cuántos gente había en la fiesta?
Gente is feminine singular — agreement must match. Cuántos (m.pl.) is wrong on two counts.
✅ ¿Cuánta gente había en la fiesta?
How many people were at the party?
❌ ¿Cuánta cuesta?
When cuánto modifies a verb, it stays masculine singular — there's no noun to agree with.
✅ ¿Cuánto cuesta?
How much does it cost?
❌ ¿Cómo viejo eres?
Calque of 'how old are you?' Spanish uses tener + años, never ser + an age adjective.
✅ ¿Cuántos años tienes?
How old are you? — Lit. how many years do you have.
❌ ¿Cuánto vendiste el coche por?
Spanish doesn't strand prepositions — por moves to the front of the interrogative.
✅ ¿Por cuánto vendiste el coche?
How much did you sell the car for?
❌ No sé cuanto cuesta.
Embedded interrogative cuánto still requires its accent.
✅ No sé cuánto cuesta.
I don't know how much it costs.
Key takeaways
- Cuánto has four forms that agree with the noun in gender and number: cuánto, cuánta, cuántos, cuántas.
- When modifying a verb (no noun), it stays invariable masculine singular: ¿cuánto cuesta?, ¿cuánto dura?.
- Gente is feminine singular: ¿cuánta gente?, never cuántos gente or cuántas gentes.
- Age uses tener + años, not ser: ¿Cuántos años tienes?, tengo veintinueve años.
- For cost, ¿cuánto cuesta? / ¿cuánto vale? / ¿cuánto es? are interchangeable; ¿cuánto es? is standard at the till.
- Prepositions go in front of cuánto: ¿por cuánto?, ¿a cuánto?, ¿de cuánto? — never trailing.
- The accent distinguishes the interrogative from the relative cuanto (as much as). Embedded questions keep the accent even without question marks.
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