Note that this is a Europe focused lesson. Your active focus is Latin America.
In Spanish, when we ask about the degree or extent of a specific quality of something/someone, we often ask using this structure:
¿Cómo de + adjective/adverb + verb...?
Have a look at these examples:
- Manuel, ¿cómo de grande es tu casa? - Uy, supergrande, tiene 8 habitaciones.- Manuel, how big is your house? - Oh, super big, it has 8 bedrooms.
Siempre dices que tu marido está muy gordo, pero ¿cómo de gordo está?You always say that your husband is very fat, but [just] how fat is he?
Dime cómo de tostado quieres el pan. Sé que te gusta poco tostado ¿no?Tell me how toasted you want the bread. I know you don't like it too toasted, am I right?
As you can see this is used when asking directly or indirectly.
Note that cómo needs a written accent.
Sometimes, especially when the verb is either ser or estar, we place the verb between cómo and de, for example:
Remember that when you use this structure with an adjective, the adjective must agree with the subject.
See also these other structures to talk about quantities:
- Using Cuánto + verb in exclamations about quantities in Spanish
- Using cuánto + noun to ask how much/how many in Spanish (interrogative adjective)
- Using qué de + noun in exclamations about quantities
- Using Qué poco/s + verb/noun to express surprise about a small quantity or infrequency
- Using [verb] + tan + [adjective/adverb] + que to say "so... that..."
- Using [verb] + tanto/a/os/as + [noun]+ que = [verb] so much/many...that...
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