Spanish question words such as quién, cuándo, and dónde translate simply and smoothly between English and Spanish, not so for qué vs cuál.
Understandably, qué and cuál are challenging because their English equivalents ‘what’ and ‘which’ aren’t straightforward either.
Should you ask:
What book are you reading?
Or,
Which book are you reading?
Just like English, Spanish switches between these two questions words in not so obvious ways.
In this post, you’ll learn everything you need to know about qué vs cuál including how to ask questions about options and how to ask questions about definitions.
An overview of qué vs cuál
If you want to learn how to use qué and cuál properly in Spanish, you first need to stop thinking of these two Spanish questions words as the translation of ‘what?’ and ‘which?’.
You’ll likely end up going around in circles if you try to directly translate these English question words. And, you may even spend unnecessary time thinking about the correct use of ‘what?’ and ‘which?’ in English.
Instead, you’ll be much better off if you think of qué and cuál in phrase combinations with either a verb, noun, or preposition.
What this means is you now have more things memorise. But, the good news is there are only 6 phrases you need to know.
Moreover, any question that you could possibly want to ask in Spanish based around options or definitions could fit into one of these 6 question phrases.
The 6 phrases are:
¿Qué es…?
¿Cuál es…?
¿Cuál de…?
¿Qué (sustantivo)…?
¿Qué (verbo)…?
¿Cuál (verbo)…?
In the last few examples, ‘(verbo)’ represents a conjugated verb, and ‘(sustantivo)’ represents any Spanish noun you may want to use in your question.
Now, instead of translating ‘what?’ and ‘which?’, you simply need to choose between one of the above question phrases.
Note we see students in our Spanish classes making the most mistakes with the second and fourth constructions (I’ll explain why in the relevant sections below).
Let’s look at each question phrase in more detail.
Question phrase 1 – ¿Qué es…?
The first thing you should ask yourself: are you looking for the definition of a word or phrase?
If you are, you’ll need this first question phrase.
Think of ¿Qué es…? as asking “What is the definition of…?”.
For example:
English: What is (the definition of) a country?
Espanõl: ¿Qué es un país?
English: What is (the definition of) a family name?
Español: ¿Qué es un apellido?
English: What is (the definition of) a sentence?
Español: ¿Qué es una oración?
If you think the answer to your question would be in a dictionary then start your question with ¿Qué es…?.
Question phrase 2 – ¿Cuál es…?
If your question isn’t related to the definition of an idea or concept but instead could have a variety of answers, you may need this second question phrase.
In fact, ¿Cuál es…? should be one of your go-to questions for asking about anything where more than one answer is possible.
Furthermore, you still need this construction even when it feels like there is only one answer such as asking someone’s name.
For example, this is not correct:
English: What is your name?
Español: ¿Qué es tu nombre? ⊗
If you want to ask someone’s name using a construction where you need to decide between qué vs cuál, you must use cuál.
English: What is your name?
Español: ¿Cuál es tu nombre?
Of course, you can also ask someone’s name using a reflexive verb in combination with cómo.
As I mentioned earlier, we see a lot of Spanish students making mistakes with this construction. This is because:
- It is really tempting to translate “What is…?” to ¿Qué es…?.
- There are many questions in English that start with “What is…?” that you can answer with a number of possible options.
Here are some more examples:
English: What is your favorite color?
Español: ¿Cuál es tu color favorito?
English: What is the plan this weekend?
Español: ¿Cuál es el plan este fin de semana?
In addition to ¿Cuál es…?, you can also ask about plural options using ¿Cuáles son…?. For example,
English: Which are your shoes?
Español: ¿Cuáles son tus zapatos?
English: What are your favorite memories of the trip?
Español: ¿Cuáles son tus recuerdos favoritos del viaje?
Note in these last two examples we have a ‘what’ and a ‘which’ in English becoming cuáles in Spanish.
Question phrase 3 – ¿Cuál de…?
This third question phrase is a lot more obvious than the previous two and is much easier to translate between English and Spanish.
You use ¿Cuál de…? when you want to ask “which of … (these options) …?”.
For example:
English: Which of your siblings is the tallest?
Español: ¿Cuál de tus hermanos es el más alto?
English: Which of these paintings do you prefer?
Español: ¿Cuál de estas pinturas prefieres?
English: Which of the cars is yours?
Español: ¿Cuál de los coches es el tuyo?
If you are expecting the question to have more than one answer, you can also use this structure with cuáles as follows:
English: Which of your friends know Spanish?
Español: ¿Cuáles de tus amigos saben español?
English: Which of your cousins went to your wedding?
Español: ¿Cuáles de tus primas fueron a tu boda?
Note that with these last two examples the conjugated verbs match cuáles in plural form (ellos / ellas).
Question phrase 4 – ¿Qué (sustantivo)…?
This fourth phrase is more troublesome than the rest.
This is because we often ask questions like this in English:
Which book do you prefer?
Which option do you want?
Which restaurant has the best food?
All of these questions will use qué in Spanish the majority of the time.
The rule is: if you immediately follow a question word with a noun, the question word in Spanish should be qué.
This is why it is much better to think of ¿Qué (sustantivo)…? than trying to directly translate ‘which?’.
The English questions above in Spanish are:
English: Which book do you prefer?
Español: ¿Qué libro prefieres?
English: Which option do you want?
Español: ¿Qué opción quieres?
English: Which restaurant has the best food?
Español: ¿Qué restaurante tiene la mejor comida?
We can also think of the common question, which translates more easily between English and Spanish:
English: What time is it?
Español: ¿Qué hora es?
Note that like a lot of the rules I write about on this website, this isn’t a 100% guarantee, exceptions are always possible especially with regional changes.
Question phrase 5 – ¿Qué (verbo)…?
You need this question phrase whenever you want to follow a question word by a conjugated verb and there isn’t a discrete set of choices in front of you.
If you want to ask about what happened, what someone wants, what someone does, or what someone wants to do, etc., you’ll need this phrase.
The choice between this phrase and the last phrase in Spanish is much closer to the consideration you have to make when deciding between ‘what’ and ‘which’ in English.
If there is a big range of options, go with ¿Qué (verbo)…?.
For example:
English: What did you do on the weekend?
Español: ¿Qué hiciste el fin de semana?
English: What do you want to do this afternoon?
Español: ¿Qué quieres hacer esta tarde?
English: What did you have for breakfast?
Español: ¿Qué has desayunado?
As you can see, the answers to these questions could range from a whole list of possible answers, none of which could be a discrete choice of 1, 2, or 3.
Question phrase 6 – ¿Cuál (verbo)…?
In contrast to the previous phrase, if you have a small set of things to choose from, and you know from context what you are choosing, then you will need this last phrase.
Context matters here! In other words, you can only use this question phrase if linked to a previous statement.
Going back to a previous phrase, imagine you have 3 books to offer someone, you could ask which book they want using question phrase 3 as follows:
English: Which of these three books do you want?
Español: ¿Cuál de estos tres libros quieres?
Or, you can use this last question phrase 6 by first stating something about the range of books, and then asking a question related to choice. For example:
English: I have three books. Which (one) do you want?
Español: Tengo tres libros. ¿Cuál quieres?
As you can see from this example the best translation of ¿Cuál (verbo)…? is “which [one] (conjugated verb)…?”.
With this last phrase, try to always think “which one?”. For example, “which one do I want?”, “which one is best”, “which ones do we need?”.
Here are some more Spanish examples:
English: There are two movies on at the cinema tonight. Which (one) would you prefer to watch?
Español: Hay dos películas en el cine esta noche. ¿Cuál prefieres ver?
English: I don’t know if I want to make vegetable soup or fish soup for dinner. Which (one) do you feel like?
Español: No sé si quiero hacer sopa de verduras o sopa de pescado para la cena. ¿Cuál te apetece?
English: We have four desserts left. Which (ones) haven’t you tried?
Español: Nos quedan cuatro postres. ¿Cuáles no has probado?
Your turn
The choice between ‘what’ and ‘which’ sometimes makes for a fun discussion in English. In contrast, the rules for qué vs cuál are more well-defined in Spanish by the above set of phrases.
It might take a little getting used to, but if you remember the phrases from this post, you will be able to avoid any mistakes with qué vs cuál.
I suggest you take one phrase from the post and use it as often as you can, then come back, choose another, and go again.
If you loved this tip, you can get more tips just like it in your inbox every week with our weekly newsletter “Español de la Semana“.
How else can you use qué vs cuál in a Spanish question?
The best article so far I have read that can explain fully and clearly the difference between que and cual. Thanks for posting this.
¡Gracias Wizer! Thanks for your kind words and thanks for reading!
There is one more simple rule, which I have been taught about qué vs cuál, which is worth mentioning here.
Apparently, questions like “What is…”, “Which are…”, etc. fall into the category of
“Cuál + Ser (conjugated)”, where “cuál” must ALWAYS be used before the verb “ser”.
I thought this might be a helpful addition to this very well-explained article.
Gracias for helping us understand this concept a lot better!
Hola Blake, thanks for your comment!
You have to be careful with rule #1 “Qué es…” e.g.
What is a noun? – ¿Qué es un sustantivo?
Here you are asking for the definition of a “sustantivo” (noun) and it uses a “qué + ser (conjugated)” construction.
Gracias para tu ayuda. Mi español no es perfecto pero es mejor. Trato practicar todas las días y está más fácil porque uso tu podcast y Duolingo.
¡De nada! Gracias a ti por leer y por tu comentario.
Hola, this really helped me with a B1-B2 workbook I’m currently working my way through. I keep getting tripped up between cuales de and quienes de, though, and can’t find any info online about when to use which. Is there a difference, or are they interchangeable when referring to people? Big thanks in advance 🙂
Hola Adele, it depends a lot on the context, but in certain situations “que” and “quien” are interchangeable when referring to people. Often “cuál” is reserved for formal written Spanish and not so common in everyday conversational Spanish.
Ah, ok, my workbook is a little scant on explanations. It gives examples, but one of the examples for ‘cuales de’ was almost exactly the same as one of ‘quienes de’ and it didn’t bother explaining why. Thanks so much! Very helpful!
You’re welcome Adele!! 🙂
gracias para tu ayuda!
¡Gracias por tu comentario! (Note that we need to say “gracias por…”)
Great explanation, thank you…
Gracias por una explicación excelente…
¡De nada! Gracias por tu comentario.
¡Muy claro!
Gracias por compartir este post.
¡De nada! Gracias María por tu comentario 🙂
Thank you this helped a lot. Just wondering how the phrase “Que es esto?” fits into your six phrases (is it a definition?). Does “Cuál es esto?” have any alternative meaning or is it just not used?
We can think of “¿qué es esto?” as “what is this?”, we have no idea what something is so we use “esto” in the neutral form and the question “¿qué es…?” for asking about the definition of something. We shouldn’t say “¿cuál es esto?”, instead we should say “¿cuál es este?” or “¿cuál es esta?”. Then, we can think of “¿cuál es este?” or “¿cuál es esta?” as “which one is this?”, like if we were picking up Christmas presents under the Christmas tree, e.g. “-¿Cuál es este (regalo)?” “-Este es (el regalo) para tu padre”, and we can remove “regalo” and “el regalo” from that mini-conversation because of the context of presents in our hands.
Excellent, clear explanation. Very enjoyable lesson. Ian
Thanks for the feedback Ian 🙂
Your lesson is a terrific find. It helped to better understand how to use these two words. But also, how you presented by saying the sentence slowly and then normally helped with knowing how to say certain words and, with practice, helped me with saying more quickly.
I signed up!!!
Thanks Ginger for your feedback and support! 🙂
I can almost glean my answer from your great explanation and all the comments/answers, but just to be sure: Do I use ‘cual’ for “in which photo?” As in: En cual foto estoy caminando? En cual foto hay una flor? (sorry, my computer skills are too American for proper accents and punctuation)
Hola Jennifer, we need to use “qué” in your examples because the noun directly follows the question word (this is ¿Qué (sustantivo)…?). So we need to say “¿En qué foto hay una flor?”.
This makes more sense than anything I’ve read on the subject. Choosing between “qué” and “cuál” doesn’t involve a coin toss any more. Thank you so much!
Thanks for the comment Sophia! I’m glad it helped!! 🙂
From a native Spanish perspective rules are not that clear, in many of those scenarios you can actually use both, I’m trying to teach my American girlfriend how a native would speak. But pretty good explanation in general!
Thanks for the comment Marcos. Yes, sometimes, teaching your own language can be harder than teaching another. I know I personally find it much easier to teach Spanish than English even though English is my first language. This is because I never learnt the rules of English whereas I studied the rules of Spanish very intensely for a long time.
Entonces:
¿Cuál es tu color favorito?
y
¿Qué color quieres? o ¿Cuál color quieres?
Hola Garry, thanks for the question. But, I’m going to see if you can answer it. Based on the article (and the 6 options for qué and cuál), which do you think is the right answer?
Hi, I want to be sure I understand the Qué (sustantivo) case. If I were to say “¿Qué/Quál perro es tuyo?” when it’s clear the context is among several known dogs, does the use of “ser (es)” indicate “Quál” rather than “Qué” or is it ALWAYS Qué (sustantivo)? Muchas Gracias por esta ayuda buena
Hola Chris, yes, you’re right! We need to go with with “qué (sustantivo)” here: “¿Qué perro es tuyo? – Which dog is yours?”
This was a great lesson. Thanks!
Thanks Gordon! 🙂
This was extremely helpful. When trying to memorize it I also found it useful to break it up and look at it in terms of when would you *not* use que for what or cual for which, since our brains are so hardwired to go there in the first place.
That’s a neat tip Dre! Thanks for sharing! 🙂
Clear. Concise. Good examples . . . Thanks
Thanks for the positive feedback Garry 🙂
¡Excelente! Las explicaciones son claras y los ejemplos son perfectos. Muchas gracias.
¡De nada Nancy! Gracias por tu comentario 🙂
Always love your explanations. So easy to understand, keeps me hooked, wanting to learn more & more these Spanish tips.
Thanks for the kind words Rebecca!!
Muchas gracias, te quiero, adios
¡De nada! 🙂
Thank you so much for this article!
It was so helpful and neatly organized!
Have a great day:)
Thanks for the feedback Min!
Thank you!! Great and fun way explaining it.
Thanks Susan!
Yay, I finally get it. Thank you so much!
Great to hear it, Jan 🙂
Thank you. So helpful to distinguish cuál and qué!
I’m glad the article was helpful. Thanks Eileen! 🙂
Como siempre una gran lección. Pero la parte de “Jeopardy” la levantó a la cima jajaja.
Muchas gracias Brian 🙂 Me alegro
Hi, great article!
I want to ask what case this question falls under?
I would have thought this has a discrete set of options and should use Cuál?
Question: Qué te gustó más historia o química?
Hola Shay, yes, this is a tricky example because it is not clear if we have a discrete set of options in the same category or not (question phrase 5 vs 6). If I asked you “which do you prefer ‘ice cream’ or ‘picking flowers’?” — are these two kinds of hobbies or two types of food or two different ways to relax?? We need a little more context to confirm the set of options are in the same category. In this case, we could ask “which of these classes do you like better? – ¿cuál de estas clases te gusta más: historia o química?”, that way we can confirm the discrete set. We could also use “cuál” in your example provided it was clear from context from the conversation or a previous sentence that we are talking about classes or subjects we can study at school. In contrast, if the discrete set isn’t well defined (like ice cream and picking flowers), it’s probably best to stick with “qué”.
I’ve been seeing cuál with nouns when part of a prepositional phrase, e.g., ¿con cuál amigo fuiste de compras? Is that correct? How does it fit in with the six forms?
Great lesson, thanks!
Hola Tim, thanks for the question! That example doesn’t look correct (or in common use) to me. If you run the English question “Which friend did you go shopping with?” through any online translator you should see it come back with “¿Con qué amigo/amiga…”.
Cool, thanks! That construction came up in a lesson in Duolingo, which is troubling; do you have experience with them? Should I not be trusting their grammar and usage?
Yes, that is troubling. I believe that you are supposed to report errors when you see them and I would expect that there would be fewer errors over time with so many users. I’m a fan of Duolingo because it is free and gets students started but I have never met a student that achieved a high level with Duolingo alone. And the word choice and grammar in their examples are sometimes strange possibly inputted by a computer algorithm, not a human.
Your article has helped me for two reasons. I found the explanations structured and clear, and the approach of how to distinguish between the two question words was new and understandable to me.
Thank you.
You’re welcome Carlo! Thanks for the kind words.
Gracias por seguir publicado tus claras explicaciones.
Linda
¡De nada Linda! 🙂
Andrew — a really interesting lesson – again
John
Thanks John 🙂
This made so much more sense than in school. Thanks!
Thanks Zoe! I’m glad it helped 🙂
Thanks, Andrew. That was a very helpful tutorial. Do the Que vs Caul “rules” apply to all Spanish speaking countries?
Thanks Gordon! Yes, I like how you put “rules” in quotation marks because we’ll be able to find exceptions from time to time, but the basic behaviour is the same in every Spanish-speaking country.
This is so helpful. I have been using Rosetta Stone and it was very unclear. I still don’t quite understand their lesson, but this lesson was much more comprehensive.
Thanks for the feedback Rachel! 🙂
Thank you! It was really helpful! Now it’s clearer with this article! Thanks a lot!
¡Muchas Gracias!
¡De nada Manikanta! Thanks for your kind words!
Excellent article! So helpful. Though it also raises some questions. My teacher says when choosing within a limited group (the 4 cheese pizza or the meat), it’s que. Same with, do you prefer the sweater or the dress–que. But both are a limited number of choices within a category. What am I missing
Thanks Jason, I’m glad you enjoyed the article! I can’t comment on what your teacher is recommending but if you were working with one of our Spanish teachers, we could definitely get to the bottom of it!! 🙂
Really the best explanation…
Thanks for the comment Art!! 🙂
Dear Mr. Andrew Barr,
I really Appreciated your lesson. Then after reading all the comments and your responses, I have come to like YOU. That is I like the persona that you show here. I have bookmarked this page and will explore your stuff later. I wish you continued success.
Thanks Robert!! 🙂 I appreciate the feedback!
¿Cuál es tu favorito, haciendo videos o escribiendo los articulos?
Is that correct?
Hola Linda, yes your question works well. But it’s better to say “hacer” and “escribir”: ¿Cuál es tu favorito, hacer videos o escribir artículos?
Wow, such a great explanation.
Problem now, is that I realise I don’t understand the rules of my own language for What and Which!
Thanks Martin, yes, the rules of English are far less clear on this topic!! 🙂
I’m confused…did everyone forget about the word “Como”? Doesn’t that also mean “what” in English? As in, “Cómo te/se llamas?” or “What is your name,” or “What are you called?”
So what’s the explanation for “Cómo” vs. “Qué” vs. “Cuál” being used in sentences?
Hola Johnnie, this is essentially a “thinking in Spanish” problem. ¿Cómo te llamas? literally in English is “How to yourself you call?”, we just say “What are you called?” because that sounds better in English. Sometimes we simply have to get used to sentence structure in Spanish that is quite different to English. I hope that helps!
Excellent explanation. Thanks.
Thanks for the feedback Linda! 🙂
Hi Andrew!
I think I followed everything other than the two examples below. Why wouldn’t the same form be used for both questions? Thank you!
¿Cuál de los coches es el tuyo?
¿Cuáles son tus zapatos?
Hola Jo, we can consider these as two possible options. Similar to English, we could ask: “Which is your car?” or “Which of the cars is yours?”
Thanks, Andrew! Sounds like either way would work, which makes sense to me.
Hi Andrew
I teach beginner Spanish.
I don’t see which option one question in my Collins Grammar book belongs to.
que equipo ha ganado?
Usually, when there is a choice of two, i would use CUAL.
Hi Tina, you can see this structure fits in with Question Phrase 4 – “Qué + sustantivo” (Qué equipo…).
English: We have four desserts left. Which (ones) haven’t you tried?
Español: Nos quedan cuatro postres. ¿Cuáles no has probado?
Shouldn’t it be “tenamos” and not “quedan?”
Hola Elizabeth, in this case “tenemos” means “we have” and “nos quedan” means “we have … left” (literally “are remaining to us”). So, we could possibly use either option here but in my opinion “nos quedan” is the better choice for this example.
Many thanks so useful
Thanks Gill! 🙂
This has been a lifesaver for me. But I am now learning a slightly different construction using de qué.
For example cuál es el color de tu libro was my gut reaction based on this article but in another post I saw someone saying the more normal way of saying it would be de qué color es tu libro.
Any tips on when to use cuál vs de qué?
Hola Daniel, both options are possible here and sometimes it’s simply a case of using the option with less words to express the same idea.
Very brave. Great stuff facing up to semantic ambiguities and grammar overides . Especially interesting when you get into context matters. Thanks.
Thanks for the feedback Neville! 🙂
It’s incredible how two little words can be so intense especially in this lesson.
Gracias
¡De nada Geri! Thanks for feedback on the article, I hope these two words are a little clearer for you now. 🙂
Nice
Thanks Bailey! 🙂