Learn Spanish (Latin America): ¿Quién tiene hambre? Corta el pastel.

¿Quién tiene hambre? Corta el pastel.

Who is hungry? Cut the cake.

Breakdown of ¿Quién tiene hambre? Corta el pastel.

Questions & Answers about ¿Quién tiene hambre? Corta el pastel.

Why does it say tiene hambre instead of using a word for 'is'?

In Spanish, you don't say that you 'are' hungry. Instead, you express this by saying you 'have' hunger. The phrase is tener hambre (to have hunger). Because the question is asking 'who has hunger,' it uses the verb form tiene, which means 'has.'

Why is tiene in the singular 'he/she' form if there might be multiple hungry people?

Just like in English where we ask 'Who is hungry?' instead of 'Who are hungry?', Spanish defaults to the third-person singular form when using the question word quién (who).

Corta usually means 'he/she cuts.' How do we know it is a command here?

Context tells us! For regular -ar verbs like cortar (to cut), the informal tú (you) command looks exactly the same as the 'he/she' present tense form. Because the speaker is directly telling someone what to do, we know it is an informal command meaning 'Cut!'

How would I say 'Cut the cake' if I were speaking formally to someone?

If you are addressing someone with the formal usted (you), the command changes. For regular -ar verbs, you drop the -ar and add an -e. To be formal or polite, you would say Corte el pastel.