Learn Spanish (Spain): ¿Qué te pasa? Tienes mala cara.

Pasar does mean 'to pass,' but it is also the standard verb for 'to happen.' The phrase ¿Qué te pasa? literally translates to 'What is happening to you?' and is the most common way to ask 'What's wrong?' in Spanish.

Why is the pronoun te used before pasa?

Here, te is an object pronoun meaning 'to you.' The subject of the verb is actually qué (what). So, instead of saying 'What is wrong with you?', Spanish speakers literally ask 'What happens to you?' (¿Qué te pasa?).

Tienes mala cara literally translates to 'You have a bad face.' Is that an insult?

Not at all! In English, telling someone they have a bad face sounds very rude, but in Spanish, tener mala cara is a perfectly normal, polite idiom to show concern. It simply means you look sick, tired, or unwell.

Why does the adjective mala come before cara? I thought adjectives go after the noun.

Usually, descriptive adjectives do go after the noun. However, common adjectives like bueno (good) and malo (bad) often come before the noun, especially in fixed, everyday expressions like tener mala cara or tener buena cara (to look well).