Por qué, porque, porqué. Three sets of words that contain the same exact letters in the same exact order but the meaning changes depending on whether they’re together, apart, have an accent, without an accent. How to keep their meanings straight? The first two (por qué and porque) are probably already familiar to you if you’ve been studying Spanish, while the third one (porqué) may be less so. Here’s your cheat sheet to keeping this threesome straight in your mind:
por qué: Two words, with an accent; is the question word “why?” in Spanish.
porque: One word, no accent; means “because” in Spanish.
porqué: One word, with an accent; is a noun that means “reason” or “cause” in Spanish. It can be singular or plural.
For example:
Isabel: ¿Por qué estás tan triste? (Why are you so sad?)
Juan: Porque mi perro ha muerto. (Because my dog has died.)
Isabel: Lo siento mucho. Me preguntaba el porqué de tu tristeza. (I’m very sorry. I was wondering about the reason for your sadness.)
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