Que or Cual

I'm a beginner so I am learning how to ask questions. I learned that que is what and cual is which. But in Lesson 3.3 Weather, we learn to say "Cual es el prognostico del tiempo" to say "What is the weather forecast?" Shouldn't it be Que es el prognostico...?

Hola Melissa y bienvenida al foro. The following is from the Dorothy Richmond Practice Makes Perfect book Spanish Pronouns and Prepositions .¿Qué? vs. ¿Cuál? " In a nutshell questions beginning with ¿Qué? are trying to elicit a definition, whereas questions that begin with ¿Cuál? ask the respondent to limit his or her answer to one of a possible many. Consider the following questions and their literal implications: ¿Qué es tu nombre? Mi nombre es la palabra que la gente usa cuando me llama. What is your name? My name is the word people use when they call me. ¿ Cuál es tu nombre? Mi nombre es Penelope. What is your name? (Which is your name from the world of names?) My name is Penelope. As you can see, ¿Qué? requests a literal answer, and ¿Cuál asks for a selection from a large pool of possible answers. Generally speaking, ¿Qué? will precede a noun, and ¿Cuál? will precede a verb." ¿Qué vestido prefieres? ¿Cuál prefieres? After awhile you will get a feel for which one to use. I also have the D. Richmond book on verb tenses. Both were recommended on this forum and I review and refer to them both often. Perhaps our resident native speaker and maestro Cristian Montes de Oca will offer his take on your question. I hope this helps ¡Buena suerte! Saludos, Rich

Hola Melissa! y hola Rich!: Muchas gracias por su confianza, es un honor que me llamen maestro (thanks a lot for trusting in me, and its an honor to be called a "maestro"). I was amazed by Rich`s answers, i cant argue with that! every single thing is perfect, this is one of the things in spanish that you can only get the feeling of it while practicing with other native speakers or reading a lot of different way of asking something. In the specific example you provided, you are asking for the "forescast" rather than the weather itself, so maybe thats where you got confused...in spanish if you asked "que es el pronostico del tiempo" (what is the weather forecast?) you may get an answer trying to explain what is the meaning of a weather forecast, you know, "the application of science and technology to predict the state of the atmosphere for a given location" instead of getting "Oh, today is gonna be sunny and warm"... So, "cual" is asking "which one" from a "lage pool of answers" (thanks rich! hehe) in this case it could be todays weather forecast or tomorrow`s... I hope this helps! les envio un afectuoso saludo desde México!!! Su amigo Cristian!

Hola Cristian, Gracias por tu respuesta. ¡ Claro eres un maestro y tambien un hombre muy amable! Tengo una pregunta con respecto a ésta tema. la regla es por lo general pero no es siempre. ¿Si? Ahora voy a escribir en inglés. Awhile back I helped a lady that asked if anyone spoke Spanish. I asked: ¿Qué necesita Señora? That seemed to feel right rather than using ¿Cuál necesita Señora? However I would ask ¿ Cuál es el problema Señora? Also if I were to ask my wife about lunch I would ask ¿Qué quieres para almuerzo? Or : ¿Cuál prefieres para almurezo pizza o hambuerguesas? ¿Es correcto? Si he cometido errores, corrige me por favor. Gracias y saludos. Rich

Hola Rich! I wish i could be a real teacher but im not, i just like to help out!. Thats correct, when you asked "¿Qué necesita señora?" you are asking her is she needs something, in general, but if for example the woman was looking for hmm i dont know, sun glasses, and she was staring at them, but wasnt able to reach them (cause they are behind the desk or something) you could ask "Cual necesita?" or "¿Cual quiere?...which would translate to "which one you need?", this brings back the "large pool of answers or choices" to the matter, because you are choosing between a a group of sunglasses, rather than just asking her "what do you need?" in general... So , in this same example if the woman arrives to the store asking for something and no one understands her you could ask "¿Que necesita señora?"...and she could answer "Necesito unos lentes para el sol" (i need some sunglasses)...and then when you take her to the sunglasses deparment (i dont know if this exists hahaha) you could show all of them to her and ask "¿Cual necesita?" pointing to the glasses, and she will respond "Quiero (or Necesito) estos" (i need those) or simply i want those!. El resto de tus preguntas son correctas, maybe i would just modify the last 2 , the ones talking about "almuerzo"...at least in México we would ask that different, the verb for "almuerzo" is "almorzar", this means "to lunch", maybe that doesnt exist in english per se but instead of asking "What would you like for lunch" you would ask "what would you like TO lunch"...i know this might not make sense in english but in spanish the question would change from "Que quieres para (el) almuerzo?" to "¿Que quieres almorzar?" and "¿Cual prefieres para el almuerzo, pizza o hamburguesas?" to "¿Cual prefieres almorzar, pizza o hamburguesas?"... it just makes it a lot more fluid, but still if you say that in any spanish speaking country you would be understood with no problem at all! And the last one is "Corrigeme" is a single compound word, so just erase the space between "corrige" and "me"...another example of this type of words are "abrazame"..."hug me" :D... Gracias a ti!, saludos desde México, y felicidades por tu avance, tu español esta mejorando mucho! Cris!

Criistian, Como siempre has ayudado yo y otras Muchas gracias. Hasta la próxima, Rich

Hey rich! de nada!!! me alegra haberte ayudado!... "como siempre me has ayudado a mi y a otros"... ;)... Saludos! nos vemos!

I have a copy of Dorothy Richmond's Spanish Verb Tenses. I have found it to be very helpful and I'm pretty sure that whatever I didn't get out of the book was due to inattentiveness on my part. Something else I've found useful is to read Spanish-language newspapers and magazines'

Hola Beverly, Estoy de acuerdo el libro es muy útil. I recently bought another book in the Practice Makes Perfect series :"The Spanish Subjunctive Up Close" Ése libro es muy útil tambien.. Saludos, Rich