Question 1

Why does the translation say "How awful!" when Qué usually means "What"?

Accepted Answer

In English, we use "How" for exclamations like "How awful!" or "How beautiful!". But in Spanish, the formula for these exclamations is ¡Qué + [noun or adjective]!. So ¡Qué horror! literally translates closer to "What a horror!", but "How awful!" is the most natural English equivalent.

Question 2

Is horror a noun or an adjective in this exclamation?

Accepted Answer

Horror is a noun. In Spanish, you can use ¡Qué... ! directly with nouns to express a strong reaction, like ¡Qué lástima! (What a pity!). You can also use it with adjectives, so you could absolutely say ¡Qué terrible! (How terrible!) as an alternative.

Question 3

Why use está instead of es if the traffic is "terrible"? Doesn't that describe what it is?

Accepted Answer

We use está (from the verb estar) because the sentence is talking about how the traffic is today (hoy). It is a temporary condition. If you were describing a city where the traffic is always bad as a permanent characteristic, you would use es (from the verb ser).

Question 4

I noticed an accent mark on tráfico. Is that just to show pronunciation?

Accepted Answer

Exactly! Words in Spanish naturally stress the second-to-last syllable if they end in a vowel (which would sound like tra-FI-co). Since the stress in this word actually falls on the third-to-last syllable (TRA-fi-co), it needs a written accent mark on the a to break the standard rule.

¡Qué horror! El tráfico está terrible hoy.

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