Learn Spanish (Spain): ¿Por qué vinieron los invitados anoche?

¿Por qué vinieron los invitados anoche?

Why did the guests come last night?

Breakdown of ¿Por qué vinieron los invitados anoche?

Questions & Answers about ¿Por qué vinieron los invitados anoche?

Why is "vinieron" spelled with an "i" instead of an "e" like the infinitive "venir"?

Venir (to come) has an irregular stem in the Preterite (past completed) tense. Instead of the regular ven-, the stem changes to vin-. For "they" (los invitados), you add the irregular ending -ieron, making it vinieron.

Why does the verb (vinieron) come before the subject (los invitados) in this question?

In Spanish questions, it is very common to swap the word order so the verb comes right after the question word (¿Por qué?), and the subject goes after the verb. Saying ¿Por qué los invitados vinieron? is understood, but ¿Por qué vinieron los invitados? sounds much more natural to a native speaker.

Could I say ayer por la noche instead of anoche here?

Yes! Both mean "last night" and are strong trigger words for the Preterite tense because they refer to a specific, completed time in the past. Anoche is just a shorter, very common single word for it.

Why is Por qué written as two words with an accent mark here?

When it means "Why" in a question, it is always written as two words with an accent on the é (por qué). If you were answering the question with "because", it would be a single word without an accent (porque).