Cual v. que

What is the rule for using "cual" when aking a what question? For example" "Cual es la direccion?" "Why not "que es la direccion?" Thanx.

As I understand it, the rule is --> if you're going to use es/son, then you use cual/cuales. Por ejemplo: Cual es su nombre? Cuales son sus nombres? If not using es/son in the question, use que. Por ejemplo: Que quieres hacer? I'm REALLY new to Spanish, so if this wrong, please somebody stop me!

Per Practice Makes Perfect: __Spanish Pronouns and Prepositions__, if the interrogative pronoun (Cuál or Qué) is followed by a verb or prepositional phrase, use Cuál; if followed by a noun, use Qué. This is a general rule, there are exceptions of course. ¿Cuál es su nombre? ¿Cuál prefieres? ¿Cuál de las plumas prefieres? ¿Qué pluma prefieres? Seems strange to me, but as I read more it appears to be true. Randy

Hola taalibeen. I think you're correct. ¿Qué? is the word one usually uses for "what" or "which," but ¿Cuál? (¿Cuáles? in the plural) is used before es/son. However, I think there's at least one exception: if you're trying to identify an object, I think you need to use ¿Qué? Por ejemplo, ¿Qué es esto? (What is this?) Like you, I'm pretty new to all this, so if I'm incorrect, I hope someone will correct me.

Hola Randy. You've helped me to see that it's more complicated than I thought (it almost always is! :D ) After I read your interesting posting (which I saw only after I sent mine), I found the following discussion on the Spanish.about.com site: http://spanish.about.com/cs/grammar/a/que_vs_cual.htm

Great information nohablo, thanks!

Don't forget that there are lots of free grammar lessons under the "Spanish Grammar" heading on the Rocket Spanish site. The answer to your question is also found there. __http://www.rocketspanish.com/ask_what.php__ As you can see, there are many cases were a verb follows "qué," not the least of which are "¿Qué quieres?" and "¿Qué necesitas?" In practice--at least in my experience--many native Spanish speakers use "qué" indiscriminately, even if it's wrong. Part of it is that "cuál" just doesn't roll off the tongue as easily.

Yep, right there on page 92 of the Advanced book also, probably the best explanation of all.

quel a nombres