¿Qué sucedió?

Spanish uses both an opening question mark ¿ and a closing question mark ? around direct questions.

So:

¿Qué sucedió?

This helps the reader know from the start that the sentence is a question. In English, you only see that at the end.

In a direct question, qué takes a written accent.

So in ¿Qué sucedió?, qué means what? as an interrogative word.

Compare:

• ¿Qué sucedió? = What happened?
• Lo que sucedió... = What happened... / That which happened...

In the second case, que has no accent because it is not being used as a question word.

A rough pronunciation for Spain would be:

keh soo-theh-DYOH

A few details:

• qué sounds like keh
• the c in sucedió, before e, is pronounced like the th in think in most of Spain
• the stress falls on the last part: -dió

A more Spain-like pronunciation is roughly:

keh su-theh-DYOH

Sucedió is the 3rd person singular preterite of suceder.

That means it translates as:

• he/she/it happened
• it occurred

In this sentence, English uses what happened?, but grammatically Spanish is using the verb form happened / occurred in the past.

The infinitive is suceder, which means to happen or to occur.

Some forms are:

• suceder
• sucede = it happens / is happening
• sucedió = it happened
• ha sucedido = it has happened

Spanish often leaves out subject pronouns because the verb ending already tells you the person and number.

In sucedió, the ending tells you it is third person singular. So Spanish does not need to say a separate subject pronoun.

English needs What happened?, but Spanish naturally just says ¿Qué sucedió?

The accent mark shows where the stress goes: su-ce-DIÓ.

It is also a normal spelling feature of many preterite forms like:

• comió
• vivió
• salió
• sucedió

Without the accent, the word would be stressed differently and would be spelled incorrectly.

It is correct and natural, but in everyday conversation many people would more often say:

¿Qué pasó?

Both mean What happened?, but there is a slight difference in feel:

• ¿Qué pasó? = more common, everyday, conversational
• ¿Qué sucedió? = a bit more formal, neutral, or narrative

So ¿Qué sucedió? is perfectly good Spanish, but ¿Qué pasó? is often more common in casual speech.

Both can mean to happen, but they are not always used in exactly the same way.

In this question:

• ¿Qué sucedió?
• ¿Qué pasó?

Both are fine.

Broadly speaking:

• suceder often sounds a bit more formal or literary
• pasar is very common in everyday speech

Also, pasar has many other meanings, such as to pass, to spend time, or to go through, depending on context. Suceder is more specifically tied to happening / occurring.

Yes. ¿Qué ha sucedido? is grammatically correct.

The difference is tense:

• ¿Qué sucedió? = preterite; asks about a completed past event
• ¿Qué ha sucedido? = present perfect; asks what has happened

In Spain, the present perfect is used more often than in many parts of Latin America for recent past events, so ¿Qué ha sucedido? can sound very natural in Spain, especially if the event is connected to the present moment.

Yes. You would usually add an indirect object pronoun:

• ¿Qué te sucedió? = What happened to you?
• ¿Qué le sucedió? = What happened to him/her/you (formal)?

This is very common with suceder when something happens to someone.

In everyday speech, though, many speakers would more often say:

• ¿Qué te pasó?

That is probably the most common conversational way to say What happened to you?