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¡Qué lío! No entiendo el problema.

¡Qué lío! No entiendo el problema.
What a mess! I do not understand the problem.
From Lesson 80:Exclamations (¡qué...!)·Spanish (Spain)

Questions & Answers about ¡Qué lío! No entiendo el problema.

Why is there no word for "a" in ¡Qué lío! when we say "What a mess!" in English?
When using qué in an exclamation with a noun, Spanish drops the words for "a" or "an" (un or una). You just put qué directly next to the noun. For example, ¡Qué lío! (What a mess!) or ¡Qué lástima! (What a pity!).
Why does problema use the masculine word el if it ends in "-a"?
Most Spanish words ending in "-a" are feminine, but problema is one of the classic exceptions. Many Spanish words ending in "-ma" that come from Greek are masculine. Other common examples you might know are el idioma (the language) and el tema (the topic).
I thought the verb to understand was entender. Where does the "i" in entiendo come from?
Entender is a stem-changing verb. This means that when you conjugate it, the vowel in the middle of the word changes. For this verb, the "e" changes to "ie" in most present-tense forms. That is why it becomes yo entiendo (I understand), but keeps the original "e" in nosotros entendemos (we understand).
Does lío refer to a physical mess, like a dirty room?
It can, but un lío is much more commonly used in Spain to mean a complicated situation, a misunderstanding, or trouble. In this sentence, ¡Qué lío! means something like "What a confusing situation!", which perfectly explains why the speaker does not understand the problem.

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