How do you say contestar in Spanish? What about responder in Spanish? 👀

Have you ever wondered what’s the difference between contestar and responder? If you look it up, you’ll see that both mean “to answer” in English. That can be a little confusing, no? In this lesson, I’m going to explain what each verb means and when (and how) to use it in Spanish.

First of all, there is indeed a difference between them. Think about answering something vs. responding or replying to something. Even though sometimes you can use contestar and responder interchangeably, there are situations where you can’t. A good example to illustrate this is the one of a politician who might respond to a question, but might not actually answer that question. In this scenario, we’ll use responder because they are responding but not answering, which is best translated as contestar in Spanish. I’ll give you below more examples for both contestar and responder.

Contestar vs. Responder in Spanish

Contestar, pronounced kohn-tehs-tahr, is a Spanish verb that translates as “to answer,” “to reply to” or “to retort.” On the other hand, the verb responder, pronounced rrehs-pohn-dehr, can also mean “to answer,” “to reply” or “to respond to.” As I said above, in some cases, these two verbs can be used interchangeably. And you can easily see why. But there’s a key difference between these two:

We use responder a una pregunta vs. contestar una pregunta. When you use contestar, you answer a question. While by using responder, you reply or respond to a question.

What does contestar mean?

Let’s take a few examples with contestar so that you can better understand how to use this Spanish verb. You can translate the verb as:

• To answer: ¿Por qué no contestas la pregunta? (Why don’t you answer the question?)
• To retort: No puedo salir a jugar por una semana porque le contesté a mi mamá. (I can’t go out to play for a week because I talked back to my mom.)
• To respond: ¿Por qué nunca contestas cuando te llamo? (Why don’t you ever answer when I call you?)

Check out more translations for contestar here.

What about responder in Spanish?

As is the case with contestar, responder also means “to answer.” You’ll see that in the examples below. One of the main differences between these two verbs is given by the context (and for a better understanding, you can see again the example with the politician.) Let’s take a few examples:

• To give an answer: ¿Por qué no respondiste cuando te llamé? (Why didn’t you answer when I called you?)
• To respond to: Los huéspedes del hotel respondieron a la alarma evacuando. (The hotel guests responded to the alarm by evacuating.)
• To vouch for: Yo no puedo responder por Raúl. (I can’t vouch for Raul.)
• To reply to: ¿Respondiste ya el correo electrónico de tu jefa? (Have you replied to your boss’s email yet?)
• To acknowledge: Mi papá no me respondió la llamada, así que tuve que irme caminando a la casa. (My dad didn’t answer my call, so I had to walk home.)

Contestar or responder? Watch the video below and learn the difference:

On a similar note, a lot of my students are confused by the verbs venir and llegar, and pedir and perder. Check out what’s the difference between venir and llegar and pedir vs perder in Spanish, and don’t shy away from using these verbs. If you have more questions or would like to take personalized Spanish classes, book a free consultation with Hannah. Hope today’s lesson clarified how to use contestar and responder in Spanish.