A Question And Answer In Spanish

[Sammy1230]

Hi there, I saw "do you (formal) have a dog?"  translated as "tiene usted un perro?". Does the pronoun always follow the verb in questions, if we choose to mention it? So would eg "do I have a dog?" be "tengo (yo) un perro" ? Would also appreciate it if somebody could explain when the pronoun is mentioned and when it's skipped. Gracias!!

[Buenchico]

It's over half a century since I studied Spanish at school but I can still get by (just!) in the basics:

The 'usual' format for questions (only) is to place a personal pronoun after the verb.  However placing it in front isn't actually wrong:
https://www.thespanishexperiment.com/learn-spanish/question-words

In general, personal pronouns are only used in Spanish when stress needs to be added to the question.  e.g. if you were to ask someone casually, "Do you have a dog?", no pronoun would be needed.  However if you were discussing canine aggression with someone who was demanding that nobody should ever be allowed to own a dog unless they'd been on a training course first, you might want to ask them, "Do YOU have a dog?, in which case the pronoun would come into play.

[Gizmonster]

Like Chris said, the pronoun is usually only used for emphasis or if there's ambiguity as to who you're referring to.  Usually context will help you ideantify who you're referring to.

Also, the pronoun can go almost anywhere:

¿Usted tiene un perro?

¿Tiene usted un perro?

¿Tiene un perro usted?

If you want to say "do I have a dog", there's no need to use "yo" because tengo tells you that it's "yo":

¿Tengo un perro?

If you use the "yo", it won't sound natural - you'll come across as a foreigner trying to learn Spanish and the aim is to try and fit in with the locals  :)

With the sentence ¿tiene un perro? if there's no context, then you might need to add the "usted" because tiene could refer to she or him.

Just out of curiosity, are you learning Spanish at the mo, if so, where are you learning it?