Breakdown of ¿Quién tiene hambre? Corta el pastel.
quién
who (singular)
el pastel
the cake
cortar
to cut
tener hambre
to be hungry
Questions & Answers about ¿Quién tiene hambre? Corta el pastel.
Why does it say tiene hambre instead of using a word for 'is'?
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!'
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