"How much did you spend?"

Translation: 你花了多少钱？

[hougineer]

你花了多少 is enough to imply money is being spent. The 钱 seems optional.

[NathanRasm]

Different reason, same result: This lesson also discusses spending time. If the English sentence doesn't say what was being spent, I'm not going to invent an extra detail.

[Danm99]

Is this wrong?: 你花多少钱了

[baharem]

I have the same question

[hippietrail]

Does this not work with just 你花了多少？

[Chris349250]

I recently learned from Chinese pod on YouTube that something like 你花了... The 了 indicates an action completed. Not past tense.

[hippietrail]

Completed or changed. Many languages don't have a concept of "tense" but instead a different one of "aspect". But most English speakers don't know the second term unless they've studied linguistics or a foreign language and tend to overuse the term "tense" to cover all kinds of changing verb endings in all languages.

了 can be used with actions in the present or future and actions in the past no not always have to use 了.

[9hSF2]

你花多少錢 should also be accepted.

[DaveLommen]

That looks more like present tense than past tense.

[hippietrail]

Chinese doesn't have tense though. I'd want to hear a native Chinese speaker weigh in.