Learn Spanish (Latin America): ¿Ellos siempre cantan en la mañana?

¿Ellos siempre cantan en la mañana?

Do they always sing in the morning?

Breakdown of ¿Ellos siempre cantan en la mañana?

Questions & Answers about ¿Ellos siempre cantan en la mañana?

Why isn't there a word for "Do" at the beginning of this question?

In English, we use "Do" or "Does" to turn a statement into a yes/no question. Spanish doesn't have a translation for this kind of "Do". Instead, you can just take the regular statement (Ellos siempre cantan en la mañana), add question marks, and raise your voice at the end of the sentence when speaking.

Since the lesson is about subject-verb inversion, could I swap the words around here to make it a question?

Yes! While this sentence uses intonation (keeping the normal word order and just raising your voice), you can also flip the subject and the verb. You could ask, ¿Cantan ellos siempre en la mañana? Both ways are perfectly correct and common in Spanish.

Why is siempre placed right before the verb cantan?

In Spanish, words that tell you how often something happens (like siempre for "always" or nunca for "never") usually go right before the verb. It is much less common to put them after the verb than it is in English.

Could I leave out Ellos and just ask ¿Siempre cantan en la mañana?

Absolutely. Since the verb ending in cantan already tells us that the subject is "they" (or "you all"), the word ellos is optional. People usually include it here if they want to emphasize who they are asking about, or to clear up confusion if it isn't obvious from the conversation.