12.2¿Cuál? and ¿Qué?/¡Qué!
35.3 (p. 211)
In standard usage, cuál is used only as a pronoun (although it is sometimes found
with adjectival force, this is not generally regarded as correct). Qué may be a pronoun
or may be used with a noun rather like an adjective. Cuál has a more specific reference
than qué, and the distinction often corresponds to English ‘which/what’.
¿Cuál quieres?
Which (one) do you want?
¿Qué quieres?
What (indefinite) do you want?
¿Qué edad tienes? (see 34.4)
What age are you?
¿En qué fecha naciste? (see 34.5)
On what date were you born?
¡Qué lástima!
What a pity!
¿Sabes qué (also lo que, see 2.7) hizo después?
Do you know what he/she did then?NOTE In an exclamation, when the noun is accompanied by an adjective, Spanish uses más or tan in
front of the adjective, which follows the noun:
¡Qué chico más/tan listo!
What a clever boy!(a) Standard Spanish cannot express the difference between English ‘which’/‘what
book do you mean?’ without using different constructions:
¿Qué libro quieres decir?
Which/what book do you mean?
¿Qué llaves? (see 31.5)
Which keys?
¿Cuál de los libros compraste?
Which book (= which of the books) did you buy?
(b) As pronouns, cuál and qué are not distinguished in quite the same way as English
‘which’ and ‘what’. Cuál tends to correspond to English ‘what’ in a number of cases
where a selection is implied, whereas qué again has a less specific meaning; though
this is not a hard and fast rule:
¿Cuál es su nombre? (see 34.1)
What is your name?
¿Cuál fue la razón? (see 43.1)
What was the reason?¿Cuál? and ¿Qué?/¡Qué! 12.2