Learn Spanish (Latin America): ¿Cuáles son las llaves de la casa?

¿Cuáles son las llaves de la casa?

Which ones are the house keys?

Breakdown of ¿Cuáles son las llaves de la casa?

Questions & Answers about ¿Cuáles son las llaves de la casa?

Why is it cuáles and not cuál?

In Spanish, question words must match the amount of the things they refer to. Since we are asking about plural keys (las llaves), we use the plural form cuáles ("which ones") instead of the singular cuál ("which one").

Why use cuáles here instead of qué?

We use cuáles because we are asking someone to choose from a limited set of options (for example, looking at a pile of keys and asking "which ones?"). If you use qué with the verb ser, you are usually asking for a definition, like "what is a key?"

Why is the verb son used instead of están?

Son comes from the verb ser (to be). We use ser when identifying what something is. We aren't asking where the keys are (which would use estar), we are asking to identify which objects are the keys.

Why does it say las llaves de la casa instead of just "la casa llaves"?

In English, we often put two nouns together, like "house keys". In Spanish, you cannot stack nouns like this. Instead, you have to use de (of) to link them, saying literally "the keys of the house" (las llaves de la casa).