Learn Spanish (Latin America): ¿Cómo haces eso?

¿Cómo haces eso?

How do you do that?

Breakdown of ¿Cómo haces eso?

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Questions & Answers about ¿Cómo haces eso?

Why does cómo have an accent mark?

In Spanish, question words always have an accent mark. This helps tell them apart from other words that are spelled exactly the same. For example, cómo with an accent means "how", but como without the accent means "like" or "as" (or "I eat").

The English translation says "How do you do that?" Why does the Spanish sentence only have one verb?

In English, we use a helper verb (the first "do") to ask a question. Spanish doesn't use helper verbs like this! You just use the main action verb. So, haces means "you do", and putting question marks around it automatically means "do you do?".

Where is the word for "you" in this sentence?

In Spanish, the verb ending usually tells you who is doing the action. Haces is the "you" (informal) form of the verb hacer (to do/make). Because the ending already tells us it's "you", you don't need to include the word tú unless you want to add special emphasis.

Why is the word for "that" eso? Shouldn't it be masculine or feminine?

Eso is a neuter word. You use it when you are talking about a general idea, a situation, an action, or an object whose gender you don't know yet. Since the speaker is asking about an action or a vague concept ("doing that"), they use eso instead of a specific masculine (ese) or feminine (esa) word.