Breakdown of ¿Qué significa esa palabra?
qué
what
esa
that (feminine)
significar
to mean
la palabra
the word
Questions & Answers about ¿Qué significa esa palabra?
Why does qué have an accent mark over the 'e'?
In Spanish, all question words (like qué, quién, and dónde) have an accent mark. This helps tell them apart from words that look exactly the same but are used differently in a sentence. For example, qué means "what," but que (without the accent) means "that" or "than."
Where is the word for "does" in ¿Qué significa esa palabra?
Why is the verb (significa) placed before the subject (esa palabra)?
In Spanish questions, it is very common to change the normal word order. When you use a question word like qué, the verb usually comes right after it, and the subject (esa palabra) gets pushed to the end of the sentence.
Why is it esa palabra instead of ese palabra or eso palabra?
Words for "this" and "that" have to match the gender of the noun they describe. Because palabra is a feminine noun, you must use the feminine word for "that," which is esa. (Ese is for masculine nouns, and eso is used for general or unknown concepts).