Is 'que' really right, though? I've only ever heard " por que".
"Qué" means 'what?' (or 'that' in a sentence), "porque" altogether means 'because' and "Por qué" separated means 'why?'
It's always seemed fairly reasonable to me that what is literally "for what" should effectively mean "why".
In all the examples I saw (google) the only use you give to "for what" is in sentences, to make reference to "a reason/cause/origin", maybe? (please explain me if I'm wrong, I wanna know how it's properly used) in those cases we would use "por lo que" or "por lo cual".
Example: One cannot be held responsible "for what" they don't understand -> Uno no puede hacerse responsable "por lo que" no entiende.
In spanish we translate "for" into "por" or "para" (depending on what you're talking about, mostly "para"), "why" is the correct translation to "por que" so "for what?" would be the proper translation to 'para qué'. Still, you normally see it translated to english to "why?" because a "for what?" as a question doesn't seem to exist in your language and it makes translations really inaccurate. "Por qué" and "para qué" have two complete different meanings which are really hard to explain, so you shouldn't translate them into the same thing (why)... "por que" would ask "which reason you folow" (motives) and "para que" would ask "which goal you follow" (actions, results), or something... I don't really know how to put it in english words. I searched for all the WH- questions and there're correct translations to all of our fundamental questions except that one.
who -> Quién
what -> Qué
when -> Cuándo
where -> Dónde
why -> Por qué
how -> Cómo
which -> Cuál
whose -> De quién
........... -> Para qué
I was like 1hour re-reading what I'm posting and had to re-write it like 5 times cause even I myself didn't understand a shit of what I was saying. I also had to edit it lots of times afterward, so please if you're gonna quote use the lastest version.
なんで -> nande -> by what -> why
What's the difference between 'by what' and 'how'?
last edited at Jun 5, 2017 2:22AM