¿Cuál o qué?

¿Cuál o qué?
 

A coworker and I were attempting to speak Spanish to each other. The question was asked:"¿Cuál es el número para el recuento de la puerta?" (We count every person that passes through the door and call it the "door count'. I'm not sure if there is a better spanish word'). Another coworker corrected us and said that we should be using "qué." But I don't understand why. I thought cuál was used before "es"? So, was cuál correct or qué? Thanks for the help!

You are right. Cuál es is correct. There may be some circumstances in which que es can be used properly, but not many. I think I have heard ¿que es eso?(said with contempt), but I would wait to hear if a native speaker can confirm this.

Cuál is correct in that circumstance.

I know there are a lot of simple "qué" things, like "Qué es esto"? but what I have learned is that when there is a chance of a lot of possibilities, you use "cuál"

ie: Cuál es tu pelicula favorito?

Thanks, I thought cuál was correct but I started to doubt myself after I was told that it was wrong. My understanding was that "qué es" is used only if you're asking for a definition otherwise "cuál es" is used. There are probably exceptions, which is why I doubted myself :)

gracias por los ejemplos. Mi peclícula favorita es Tremors :thumbsup:

Qué es is really common:
¿Qué es lo que vas a hacer hoy?
¿Qué es eso?
¿Qué es lo que más te gusta en el mundo sin contarme a mi?

wafflestomp hitted the spot. You can't say ¿Cuál es eso? Because you are pointing just one thing, there is not any other possibility. ¿Cuál es "El libro de los siete anillos"? will not be a question for a definition, you want the other to show you which is that book, and not what is it.

If you say there: "¿Qué es el número..." You are asking "What is: "the number..."". You are asking for a definition ("The number..." is...). If you use Cuál, you are asking "Which is the number...", you want a name, you want to point out something from a totality (345 persons). Hope someone can explain this better.

Well said ookami - like when asking the telephone info operator for
a particular number - "¿Cuál es el número...?".

wafflestomp hit the spot.

Thanks :D

Thanks for the help.

I'll open this thread again. Sorry.

I was listening to a podcast this afternoon. It's a Spanish language learning podcast from Madrid. They were talking about topics related to music, and they said that to say "What is your favorite music group?" it would be "¿Qué es tu grupo favorito?" I was very surprised, because I thought for sure it would be "cual". Why is it "que"?

If they really wanted to say that, they made a mistake.
¿Cuál es tu grupo favorito?

Yeah, it's cuál.

Gosh! I would hope that a language learning podcast would get the basics right. It can be confusing ... I was wondering if there was some sort of exception that I didn't understand..... Thank you!! :)

Okay, no joke .... I listened to the very next podcast in that series today, and they always do a review of the previous podcast. (Summary - a Spanish-language learning podcast out of Madrid....) The one speaker said "How do you say 'What groups have you seen live?'" and the other speaker (native of Madrid) said "¿Que grupos has visto en directo?" Is that also supposed to be "cual"?

Now it's ok :) Sorry but I can't explain this well. But maybe this can help:

In the other sentence we said the correct way was:
¿Cuál es tu grupo favorito?
But if you make the sentence this way you can use "qué":
¿Qué grupo es tu favorito?
(although the first one is more common)

In the first sentence, if you use "qué", it will be wrong, but in the second one you can also use "cuál".
In conclusion, you can use "qué" with "cuál" meaning if you use it before a noun. I don't know if there are exceptions or not. I've found this webpage that corrobarates this a little bit and go further on "qué and "cuál" uses. Maybe you can clear this out while reading it:

http://spanish.about.com/cs/grammar/a/que_vs_cual.htm

With a noun:
¿Qué grupos has visto en directo? :good:
¿Cuáles grupos has visto en directo?:good:
With "ser":
¿Cuáles son los grupos que has visto en directo?:good:
¿Qué son los grupos que has visto en directo?:bad: This will be like: "¿Qué son: "los grupos que has visto en directo"? You are asking for a definition of the thing between "".

Thank you - that makes a LOT of sense!!