Cuál es el pronóstico del tiempo

Why couldn't you use Que ? instead of Cuál

What is the weather forecast? My thoughts...... Cuál does mean which/what and would normally be used to express a choice. Normally "Cuál" would not be used ahead of a noun which pronóstico is, you would therefor use "Qúe" with an accent meaning "what?" as you suggest. I hope I'm right!!!

I think sjlkh may be incorrect here. If you say ¿Qué es el pronóstico del tiempo?" you're asking for the **definition** of a weather forecast. Thus, an answer would be "A weather forecast is a prediction of what the weather will be like in the future." If you're not asking for a definition but rather for the specific forecast (e.g., tomorrow it will be sunny with highs in the 70s), you'd use "¿Cuál es el pronóstico del tiempo?" Here are some links to discussions of the difference between Qué and Cuál: http://spanish.about.com/cs/grammar/a/que_vs_cual.htm http://spanish-podcast.com/2008/02/02/que-cual-spanish-grammar/ http://www.spanishgrammargenius.com/que_cual_interrogative_pronouns_difference_Spanish.htm The last one should be all on one line, but the forum's feeble interface broke it up. I hope this helps.

Hi nohablo, Thanks for the clarification. On further review of your links and my text books I see the differences. Qúe es......as you say is requesting a definition of "a" weather forecast and Cuál es.....as you say is asking what is "the" weather forecast. In this example, if using "qúe" in requesting the definition, should you also use "un" instead of "el"? Muchas gracias!

Hola sjlkh. Yes, I think using "un" would be better, but I think whenever you use "Qué es... " you are signalling that you're looking for a definition, except perhaps in a few idiomatic expressions.

I'm just learning and I'm confused by the word "tiempo". How do you know if it means "weather" or 'time"? In English, I suppose it would be a homonym and the definition of it would be determined by how it is used in a sentence. Is this the same in Spanish? Thanks. Mike

"Tiempo" means both weather and time. You may also see "clima" used to mean weather. I believe they are interchangeable but are likely be be used regionally.