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To invert or not to invert

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Caballero
June 02, 2011, 10:19 AM
In Standard Spanish, when asking a question and you're including a pronoun, does it invert like in English?

¿Habla él ruso? - Does he speak Russian?
or should it be:
¿Él habla ruso?

aleCcowaN
June 02, 2011, 10:37 AM
It's the same to me. "¿Habla él ruso?" looks also a bit more formal. Also "¿Él lo habla? ¿Lo habla él?".

One of the reasons Spanish has an essential "¿" sign is that it's not clear by grammar when something is a question or not, in the way it is with English "I can! I think. May I?"

Luna Azul
June 06, 2011, 04:50 PM
In Standard Spanish, when asking a question and you're including a pronoun, does it invert like in English?

¿Habla él ruso? - Does he speak Russian?
or should it be:
¿Él habla ruso?

Spanish is very flexible in sentence construction.

¿Él habla ruso? = ¿habla ruso él? = ¿habla él ruso?

Therefore the two question marks in the written language.

In the spoken language only the intonation will let you know if it's either a question or a statement.