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- Topic: Spanish >
- "¿Qué día es mañana?"
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This sentence seems to be right -- I have a second-lang Spanish speaker who says it sounds better to him than ¿Cuál día es mañana? and a Google search turns up a lot of Qué results when I search for the question using Cuál...
However, I am curious as to whether anyone can explain this. It seems like a classic case of a cuál-what instead of a qué-what.
1687
Using "cuál" before a noun is wrong!
Have a look to this link: http://www.onetoonespanish.co.uk/blog/the-difference-between-que-and-cual-in-spanish.htm
When the question implies a choice between two or more alternatives and conveys the idea of selection, ¿Cuál + verb/preposition? or ¿Qué + noun? can be used.
- 508
Good Link. However, to make it more simple, here is a great quote:
"¿qué?" can be followed by a noun or a verb.
but "¿cuál? can only be followed by a verb or the preposition "de".”
Cuál before a noun is incorrect.
If I understand correctly, Blas_de_Lezo00 and sguthrie1, are you saying that "cuál" is an indefinite pronoun?
No, cuál before a noun is not wrong. The idea that it is seems to be a common misconception among native speakers.
The RAE, the language regulator for Spanish, endorses both qué + noun and cuál + noun. For example, November 26, 2018 they tweeted, "Both options are correct." They addressed the matter again less than two weeks ago.
Here are the usage examples for definition 1 of cuál in the Diccionario de la lengua española:
- Tengo que ir a su casa y todavía no sé cuál camino escoger.
- ¿Cuáles amigos has visitado en Roma?
https://dle.rae.es/cu%C3%A1l?m=form
Of course, if one is interested in learning European Spanish, it would be worthwhile to take note of the proviso (cf. point #4) that this usage of cuál is much more common in the Americas than in Spain. In practice, using it in Spain probably runs a substantial risk of being considered to have made a grammatical error.
In this case, although cuál can be used as "what," this is more of a "what day of many/which day of the week" is tomorrow, sorta question. At least, its how i perceive it. Por ejemplo, hoy es lunes.
However, the "Qué" could be used in the sense of, "What day (assuming something significant is supposed to happen) is tomorrow?" Por ejemplo, mañana es mi cumpleaños.
Could a native verify/correct me if I am wrong? Thanks! ^_^
Wowopow2300 is essentially asking if the diference between qué and cuál in Spanish in this case would be the same as the difference between what and which in English in the same context.
That is, asking if ‘cuál’ is asking for one out of a specific set of valid choices while ‘qué’ is more open-ended or abstract/generic.
- 508
As a anglohablante, I am inclined to say you're correct. I was thinking along the same lines.
I suspect that Wowpow2300 is uncomfortable with the phrase "native speaker of." Some people find this phrasing to be an offensive pejorative. I personally find this phrasing informative and acceptable because it's much quicker to say "a native English speaker" than to say "a person whose mother tongue is English."
- 508
I get your point. However....
I did not know if the person was asking for a native English, or native Spanish speaker.
My Spanish teachers have told me there are situations when the cual/que choice is no big deal. Que/cual dia? could be answered with "lunes" (one of several options, cual) or "the day I try to pass my driving test" or "my birthday" or "the day after this one" (description/definition, que).
I prefer. qué día es mañana. they could answer it's Monday or Tuesday whatever day it is...
I also prefer not to use. cual es. because it sounds like we are saying which one is . or which one should I choose...
Exactly. One would usually say in the UK "what day is it tomorrow?". Simple as. Don't know what all the debate is about, except that Duo used a less common translation.
You use que when asking for an answer to a question (Que dia es hoy?) (What day is today?) You use cual when there is a choice ( Cual ventana?) (Which window?)
"What is the day tomorrow" is probably not accepted because people don't usually phrase it that way so they didn't write it into this app. In many cases there are multiple correct ways to say things in english and duolingo can't possibly cover them all.
Right. It is off base to see what offbeat things Duolingo might accept.
Going with how things are most commonly said is the way to go. That makes for good translation.
Rather than phrasing it "What is the day tomorrow," I would be more likely to phrase it as "What day is tomorrow?" or "What day is it tomorrow?"
I believe you may have been marked wrong because the usual syntactical order of this question is adverb (what), predicate verb (is), subject of sentence (it), subject complement (tomorrow), which is "What is the day tomorrow?
English reverses the S–V (subject/verb) order of a sentence statement to V–S (verb/subject) order when the sentence is a question.
That's what I (native AE speaker, English teacher) wrote, maybe because What day is tomorrow? just doesn't sound right.
Actually, I think that (referring to Adrian's 'which day is tomorrow') is possibly better English.
More common is to say "what day is IT tomorrow?" After all, "what day is tomorrow" could be answered "the day after today" - which isn't very helpful, is it?
Turn your keyboard upside down :-)
...Or install the US-International keyboard and enjoy easily typing ¿ é ú í ñ ¡ , with the added bonuses of ² ³ ¤ € ¼ ½ ¾ ¥ × ä å ® ü ú ó ö « » á ß ð ø ¶ æ © µ ç characters.
My answer is correct but it keeps saying it is wrong, it shoupd jave been accepted, cant progress to next question !!!
What exactly is your answer? Copy it and paste it here (don't retype it)
Wouldn't it have been writen as 'What day is IT tomorrow?' because it makes more sense that way I belive. As without 'it' the sentence doesn't make sense does it?
- 144
Why is my answer said to be wrong when it is exactly like what the correction says?????
This is so frustrating.
apparently Duolingo does not Accept "what day is it tomorrow" and i have not found any error with that when using other types of language websites... please explain.
