Cómo

Today’s Spanish word of the day is “cómo”.

It’s an adverb meaning “how”.

“Cómo” is used in question phrases and is spelled with an accent mark (ó) to distinguish it from the word “como”, which is pronounced identically but listed separately in Spanish dictionaries.

“Como” without the accent mark translates as “like” or “as”, rather than “how”.

“Cómo” doesn’t always translate exactly as “how” in English, or vice versa. For example, the phrase “¿Cómo te llamas?” literally means “How do you call yourself?” However, it would usually be translated as “What is your name?”

Another example of this is simply asking “¿Cómo?” when you don’t catch what someone has said, or are surprised by it. This is the equivalent of saying “What?” in English, even though the literal translation would be “How?”

Example sentences