cuán

how (exclamatory/interrogative degree)

adverb KWAHN Rare

Usage Note

Cuán is the accented form of cuan, used in exclamatory and indirect interrogative clauses to express degree: ¡Cuán difícil es esto! ('How difficult this is!'). It is literary and formal; in everyday speech qué or lo… que constructions replace it. The unaccented adverb cuan survives mainly in the correlative tan… cuan.

Examples

"Nadie sabe cuán lejos llegará."

Natural Translation

Nobody knows how far he will go.

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